Open letter to all creators of academic software: Please, *please*, just include error messages in your program. If there's a situation you've identified that needs the program to bail out early, just .... let me know that it happened so I can address it accordingly. PLEASE.

Got my student loans on autopay through my bank. Student loan company wants to be the ones in charge of autopay, so they're offering a discount on the interest rate if I give them access to my bank account (not happening). Tell me how this whole stupid thing isn't just the biggest scam ever.

I think we, as scientists, should start signing off our emails better than "Thanks" or "Sincerely". I'm gonna start with a rotation of "In enantiomeric excess," "Catalytically inert," and "In Silico" (when sent from my phone). I'll add more if there are any good suggestions.

My student loan service company emailing me every other week to thank me for my payment like it's something I'm doing willingly and with any kind of positive feelings about it is beginning to grate on my nerves. I've already paid more than the original principal, and I've got 10 years to go. Jerks.

I'm finding myself constantly entertained by LinkedIn posts from AI hype accounts who include things like "I used a 2000-line prompt to achieve X" and my first thought is "I can do that with like 20 lines of code, though." AI cannot and will not replace actual innovation and real experience.

I keep seeing "uplifting" headlines like "California Law bans companies from using AI to monitor employee emotional states" and I'm beyond horrified that there needed to be a *law* against that, rather than absolutely any modicum of basic human decency being enough.

Public flogging of politicians who break the law might be a solid start. "You want to wield this kind of power? It comes with these kinds of consequences."

Chemjobber@chemjobber.bsky.social · last mo.

This may be the worst, longest-term aspect of the Trump era: the normalizing of not apologizing for any kind of error made, no matter how grievous I have no idea how to re-establish these norms

News: "<Service> free for <group>" Internet: "<Service> should be free for EVERYONE!" Improvements aren't usually all-or-nothing events. Getting <Service> free for <group> makes it easier to increase <group> towards EVERYONE, because it's harder to justify objections to the increment. like M4A.

"Non-profit" seems to be used more and more to mislead people. Non-profit just means "nothing left over after expenses", it doesn't really mean that the expenses aren't absurd salaries in lieu of actually helping people who need it.

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D.@sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I just don't think anybody should be making over a million dollars a year working for a nonprofit/university/museum. I don't think there is any justification for it. This is even more true when those making 2.5mil a YEAR say they don't have enough money to continue public services.

I want, more than anything, a serious academic journal that is specifically focused on failures. "We had a goal. We had a hypothesis. We tried 84 different methods that didn't work. We ran out of funding. We had to stop the project." We gotta know about those 84 method so we don't repeat them!

Pretty sure we fought a whole war to not give a shit what y'all think. Just like a hundred other countries around the world who celebrate an Independence Day. Get over yourself, you're not the arbiter of language.

👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞@jacktindale.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Minor point but I really hate this performative “y’all” people do to try and appear more folksy. I don’t type in a Yorkshire accent and I did people would rightly tell me to shut up.

Minor point but I really hate this performative “y’all” people do to try and appear more folksy. I don’t type in a Yorkshire accent and I did people would rightly tell me to shut up.

We're being told that if we sacrifice the rights of some people, then the rest of us get to keep our rights. We all know that's some BS.

Whatever publishing company executive had the idea to advertise other books on the backs of toddler books is two things: 1. An absolutely brilliant businessperson and marketing genius. 2. 100% the villain of our tale. We have purchased so many toddler books. My bookshelf has been overrun...

Cloudflare (>20% of all domains) has started automatically implementing DSM Dir art 4 rights reservation (ie copyright/TDM objection to scraping) for all sites that do not have a robots.txt file. They also adding purpose fields to robots.txt unilaterally. developers.cloudflare.com/bots/additio...

Anyone seeking asylum should... *checks notes* sleep on a rock and eat with their hands, got it.

Pete Fraser@petefrasermusic.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The Express is a terrorist newspaper.

Dear LinkedIn, No matter how desperately you may plead with me, I will never - and I must reiterate this again - NEVER download and install a "LinkedIn App" to my computer. I don't care if you promise to immediately hand me a 7-figure job. Take that garbage elsewhere.

"don't make enough money" is a fig leaf All those degree programs--social work, art, etc.--have disproportionately female student bodies. This is designed to make it harder for women to attend college--college education being a key factor in women's autonomy from men & left-leaning voting pattern.

The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 3mo ago

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

Congrats to Dr. Matt Allen, for being named a fellow of the @RSC.org, one of the highest distinctions awarded by the world’s oldest chemical society. #wsuchemistry #chemsky clas.wayne.edu/chemistry/ne...

WSU chemistry chair and AVP for research and innovation named fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry

Wayne State chemistry chair Matthew Allen named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, one of the field's most prestigious senior honors.

clas.wayne.edu

One of the frequent ads I see during my doomscrolling is for an enclosed garden bed/house structure. And all I can see is the amount of fully untreated and improper wood they're using. It's so unready to be used the way they have it, it's sucking moisture out of the dirt. It's gonna rot so fast.

Socialist policies are only "bad for business" if your business is hoarding as much money as you can while intentionally creating suffering in as many people as possible. Then, yeah, sure.

I am ride-or-die for tardigrades. Little eldritch horrors just floating around in the void of space, unbothered by any of the quaint concerns like "Radiation" or "Sustenance of any kind". Little monsters from beyond the veil, I love them.

Petra Korlević@petrathepostdoc.bsky.social · 4mo ago

REJOICE FOR BEST COMPETITION OF THE YEAR NOMINATE YOUR BUGS www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"... at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country." Aww, look at the cute little baby born only hours ago, can't even really open its eyes... Here's your rifle, baby, you owe this country your allegiance! To war with you! Alito is a trash bag of a human and this dissent is unconcealed bigotry.

Gabriel Malor@gabrielmalor.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Justice Alito, in dissent, says the constitution does not "degrade the concept of United States citizenship" by confering citizenship on the children of "birth tourists." Degrade. As if the quality of Alito's citizenship depends on excluding others from citizenship.

Electricity Usage this month vs. last year: +6%. Electricity Bill this month vs. last year: +22% DTE energy is the absolute worst. They're presenting my bill like somehow I'M the problem and not the fact that they're asking for another $500M rate increase this year.

You will also spend the GDP of a small country on berries. There will not be enough, regardless of the quantity consumed.

Dr Zoë Ayres@zjayres.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Things no-one told me about having a child, #475: you just have to do 17kg toddler deadlifts on a regular basis

My biggest editing client has officially replaced me with an LLM, meaning I am now functionally unemployed. If any of you need a proofreader or copy editor and value having a human being who can tell right from wrong doing the job, let me know?

If money is the lifeblood of an economy, a trillionaire is the blood clot about to hit the brain.