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This is for my computer class, so I think the professor will appreciate it.

#yes it is what you think it is #xkcd #quartz of course #the earl's college adventures

I am having to peer program with an AI for one of my classes.

How does anyone tolerate this for more than five minutes. Talking to this thing feels like talking to your boss's nephew who got hired on account of nepotism. Saying it has a room temperature IQ is unfair to any room that it's in.

I have made the choice recently to not use slurs for the AI, because it's just not a habit one wants to get into. I can't help thinking about Alan Turing wistfully imagining sending an AI to school, and trying to figure out how to raise it right when it can't even fetch the coal scuttle.

But dammit, this thing makes me want to have a Heated Gamer Moment.

I know there are people who do this professionally and say that it increases their productivity. I know this. And I am genuinely struggling to see how that's even possible, because I cannot get this thing to understand a word I am saying.

#the earl's college adventures #the earl bitches and moans #generative ai #ai technology #vibe coding #*SIGH*

So I've been saying in the Skyrim community for a while that AI voices make my teeth itch. I've tried it before, back when it was just coming out, and I hated how it sounded, there was something off about it.

I've heard the models have been getting better and the cadence in particular has gotten less grating. I've been thinking that, you know, maybe I was a bit too harsh, and in a hobby community where this enables people to make the free things they want to make without having to get a whole team of VAs lined up, maybe I should give the AI VA a chance in that very specific context.

But I've been taking a programming class for school where the professor made a bunch of AI "explaining the assignment" videos and oh, god, oh dear fucking god in heaven, listening to the AI voice work is actively painful.

I know ElevenLabs is better than whatever comes onboard with Google's AI Video Machine, but auuuuuugh how does anyone think this sounds good?????? How??????

#the earl speaks #the earl bitches and moans #the earl's college adventures #generative ai #ai voice acting #AUGHHHHHHH

...man, what is it with anthropology classes at my school and jumpscaring you with horrible horrible horrible stuff with zero warning? summer semester it was the bonobo fuckin' and this semester it's eugenics!

...............I'm taking a Human Evolution class and we're talking about Darwin and the history of how his ideas have been misused for Week 2- already off to a great start- and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

They're uh. Making us read about eugenics. Specifically, part of the Buck vs. Bell decision, which is a Supreme Court case from the 1920s that said "hey, sterilizing the 'unfit' is totes cool yo'.

....this class has been painfully, overweeningly careful to not reprint any of the racist shit that people said to support eugenics, but they're perfectly fine to dump a giant load of triggers in the lap of any disabled person who happens to read this.

What the fuck.

I want to stick this out so that I don't have to take, like, a physics class and have missed the first 2-3 weeks. Or don't have to take a summer class. But I am never ever ever ever taking an anth class again. At least not at my current school. This is wretched.

#the earl's college adventures #ableism #violent ableism #ANTH CLASS FROM HELL 2: ELECTRIC FUCK YOU

earlgraytay

He's brown-eyed. He's lactose-intolerant. He has rheumatoid arthritis, gallstones, and several poorly-healed rib fractures. His tattoos might be evidence of a primitive acupuncture system. He lived around 3300 BCE in the Ötzal Alps.

I didn't say his name, but he popped into your head, didn't he?

earlgraytay

Not making any of this up, by the way. (Source is Zink et. al 2019.)

A very specific subset of Undergrad Hell: peer reviewing papers for someone who is not actually your intellectual peer.

I swear to gods, I'm not being a snob here. I'm a professional writer with like 5-10 years of experience depending on how you count. I'm not great at academic writing (the cadence makes my teeth itch), but I can rotate a phrase.

And the poor kid I'm peer reviewing - I do not know if they are an ESL speaker or if they have a learning disability or if they did most of their high school during COVID or what, but they... they are very definitively struggling to write a coherent sentence, and don't seem to understand how things like 'thesis statements' and 'academic bibliographies' work. Being honest, I do not think they're ready for this class. I feel guilty even saying that, but if you can't write a complete sentence you are not ready for a sophomore-level undergrad English class.

...I'm beginning to understand why I'm getting A++s on all my papers even if I put zero effort in.

#the earl's college adventures #the earl bitches and moans

superlinguo

My collection of Academic Research/Admin tools

Over the years I've build myself a little collection of tools and resources to manage the weird and messy work of being an academic. I thought I'd compile them all here in case any of them are useful to you.

Academic Log

This Google Sheet template from Dr Bronwyn Eager lets you keep track of all the things you've done as an academic. I set it up after a very tedious promotion application and have found it invaluable. There's a blog post about it as well.

Academic Time Tracker

This spreadsheet was developed by Brendan Keogh as a way to track where you spend your hours across the days/weeks/year as a teaching and research academic. I was already doing some gentle time tracking, this sheet has been very useful to help me reflect and think about where I'm spending my energy (and to try and rein in the overwork).

Zotero

Zotero is a great reference manager, and with the browser plug in that I've installed, I've never been more on top of keeping my references up to date. It's also really great for collaborative projects, I have a whole stack of shared collections.

Trello

I have tried using Trello for general task management, but to be honest I'm usually happy with a spreadsheet, keep note or even a physical post it note. I've set up a trello board to keep track of where different articles are for publication, here's a template of it.

Paper diary

I keep a digital calendar, but I just like writing my week out and planning tasks on paper, and it's nice to have it all in one place. There are so many different diaries, I like one that's very minimal so I can use it as I see fit. It's not pretty, but it's useful. I use an emma kate co. because it has very minimalist pages, but that's just me.

Links to other resources I've found helpful:

Pomodoro method (Wikipedia): A good framework for approaching writing and other tasks in short focused sessions.

Seasonal organisation (Kirby Conrod): This article is framed around adhd, but I think it's good for everyone to know that you should always be revisiting how you work.

Cornell method (Katherine Firth): get the most out of your note taking.

earlgraytay

I'm cranky about my classes today. In succession:

I've had a professor blatantly misunderstand A Room Of One's Own at me, completely failing to understand that it's not about the social constraints placed on women, it's about the material constraints.

And I do mean at me- I called him out for one of his quiz questions being Wrong, and he was all "well, I have a PHD, I know what I'm talking about".

I've had to read Marxist Theory ™ (which always sets my teeth on edge, even when I agree with it in principle, because The Marxist Theory Register sounds like my ex who tried to forcefem me).

THE MARXIST THEORY WAS WRONG ABOUT THE MIDDLE AGES.

Thankfully, I got to meet with my program advisor today, and she was a lovely person. We mostly talked about game design (she's not a gamer, so I got to introduce her to the concept of ludonarrative dissonance), dinosaurs, and bad movies.

Crusty professor PDFs are the backbone of the academic world.

#the earl's college adventures

So I kind of got Love Live'd into my college's Entrepreneurship Club.

I might not be able to attend because it overlaps with one of my classes, but...

#the earl's college adventures

College tip: if you're writing a literature essay, always always always see if you can find a scholar who studies the author you're looking into.

If it feels like there's something you're missing, there probably is- and there's probably someone willing to explain it to you in detail.

#studyblogging #studyblr #the earl's college adventures

theearlsstudyblr

I am incandescently angry with my German professor right now.

theearlsstudyblr

Frau Schlechtklass has a really nasty habit of dumping One William Small Assignments on you. These One William Small Assignments are individually pretty trivial, but FEEL like a lot, especially if you have the kind of ADHD that makes it hard to prioritize.

Last week, before our final (due tomorrow), she gave us One William Review Quizzes. These were, again, individually pretty trivial! Most of them were less than ten questions long and went over material we already knew! But trying to figure out how to prioritize them all was getting to me.

Today, she told us that all of those review quizzes were extra credit.

I've been busting ass trying to figure out how to get everything done and turned in on time, and I did not need to do half of it.

#general malarkey #the earl's college adventures

I am incandescently angry with my German professor right now.

#general malarkey #the earl's college adventures