Colin Madland 🇨🇦

@cmad

2,037 Following940 Followers544 Posts

Bluesky

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Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· 36m

110km Ridden. $476 Raised. Can you help? greatcyclechallenge.ca/Riders/Colin...

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Jul 14

That time of year again! I’m riding my bike 200k and raising $500 to fight kids’ cancer in August. I’d be grateful for your help. greatcyclechallenge.ca/Riders/Colin...

Collage of children who are fighting cancer with the sentence ‘I’m riding to fight kids’ cancer! In the middle.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Jul 2

Ellie says hi.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Jun 7

That’s super cool. I notice that on mobile, the trigger is very close to the top of the page. No judgement or analysis. Just observation.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· May 27

🤘🏻 @profandyfield.com

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· May 16

Ahhh...there's these icons in the top right...? Not entirely intuitive to go looking in the top right to close the left panel

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· May 4

Who can tell me the story of these clouds?

Whispy clouds that look like a broad, white stroke of a paintbrush against an otherwise clear blue sky. There are some branches from a walnut tree in the bottom of the photo.

Whispy clouds that look like a broad, white stroke of a paintbrush against an otherwise clear blue sky. The right side of the clouds seem to be disrupted by some wind.

Whispy clouds that look like a broad, white stroke of a paintbrush against an otherwise clear blue sky. There is some sort of disruption on the right side.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Mar 15

Me too! It’s a great ‘who to follow’. Can we copy it and turn it into a starter pack?

My listifications notifications showing I’m on the Ai haters blocklist

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Mar 15

I get a bit of whiplash looking at my @listifications.app notifications. Can I get a checkmark or something? A badge? A personalized hex? #RStats #aihaters #aihaters4life

My justification notifications showing I’ve been added to an ‘R and data science “ list as well as “techno-pessimists” and “AI Haters”.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Mar 11

Beautiful sunrise yesterday morning...

Ellie, the Bernese Mountain Dog x German Shepherd 'looks' out over Okanagan Lake, with the sun peeking over the Okanagan Range on the other side. Note: Ellie is blind, so she isn't really looking at anything.

Alt view of Ellie the blind dog looking out over the Okanagan Valley, with the sun lighting her face and black and tan coat. Her pupils are perpetually dilated, so she ALWAYS looks like she is in love with you.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Mar 5

I use ours a LOT. It’s a bit low for cooking things like nachos for 3…otherwise really good.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Feb 28

Gravel trail beside Okanagan Lake in the spring sunshine.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Oct 26

Hey @searchliaison.bsky.social even though you’ve enshittified your search algo, it’s still better than the utter bullshit coming from Gemini.

Search results show the hours of the Kamloops Library today. The AI Slop ‘overview’ says the hours are not listed in search results. This lunacy is highlighted.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Oct 24

This is Ellie. Her full name is Eleanor, and she’s been blind her whole life. She lives for scritches, chasing balls, and treats….and naps.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Oct 21

Interesting guidance from the Tri-Council Agencies in Canada about AI use in evaluating grant proposals. I presume this applies also to tools like #turnitin. @sshrc-crsh.canada.ca #nserc #cihr @linkletter.org

Guidance on the use of generative AI in the evaluation of grant applications
In the evaluation of grant applications, reviewers should be aware that uploading application information into any online tool could result in breaches of privacy and in the loss of custody of intellectual property. Examples include transmission of application text to online tools such as ChatGPT and DeepL, which may store and reuse the data for future enhancement of the tool. This would place a reviewer in breach of the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Agreement for Review Committee Members, External Reviewers and Observers. Therefore, use of publicly available online tools for evaluating grant applications is strictly prohibited.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Oct 10

@drkevinrmcclure.com Interesting ad below the listing for your book on amazon. Seems ... pointed.

screenshot of the amazon.com listing for the book 'The Caring University' by Kevin R. McClure. the listing includes a sponsored advertisement promoting a book called 'Silenced: how wokism enforces conformity in higher education and how to fight back'. The screenshot is annotated with 'Not Amazon using its obscene power to push false right-wing narratives'.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Aug 31

It is imperative that techbros (and everyone else) stop anthropomorphising synthetic text generators. www.techpolicy.press/ai-chatbots-... #openai #llm

Even as such stories draw concern from the public and from lawmakers, tech companies appear to be doubling down on AI companions. OpenAI recently acquired a startup called ‘io’ to collaborate on what its cofounder and CEO, Sam Altman, calls “maybe the biggest thing [we’ve] ever done as a company”: a screen-less, pocket-sized AI companion. Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently floated his own vision for AI friends. Tech giants are no longer just building platforms for human connection or tools to free up time for it, but pushing technology that appears to empathize and even create social relationships with users.

This is dangerous ground, and it is critical for tech firms to strip away illusions of personality and cognition in their products while we work out associated risks and how to mitigate them.

Deceptive, dangerous design

Chatbots communicate their “social-ness” through a range of design choices, such as appearing to “type” or “pause in thought,” or using phrases like “I remember.”

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Aug 14

I'm riding 200km to raise money to fight kids' cancer. Here's a link if you are able. greatcyclechallenge.ca/riders/Colin...

Collage of children smiling for the camera. Each child is fighting some form of childhood cancer.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· May 5

Current status…vehicle incident. It’s inconvenient for me, but someone is having the worst day of their lives, and that is awful.

iOS map showing my car parked on highway 97 in central BC, at the end of a long line of stopped cars. Highway is closed in both directions due to a vehicle incident.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Mar 16

A couple for you to play with…

Bald, bearded white guy looking skeptical.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Feb 22

See also Starch and Elliott on grading practices in education. Starch, D., & Elliott, E. C. (1912). Reliability of the Grading of High-School Work in English. The School Review, 20(7), 442–457. doi.org/10.1086/435971

Three plots of grading data showing the results of expert teachers grading the same paper. There are huge discrepancies between the grades along with an apparent influence of the passing grade being either 70% or 75%. Source is Starch, D., & Elliott, E. C. (1912). Reliability of the Grading of High-School Work in English. The School Review, 20(7), 442–457. https://doi.org/10.1086/435971

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Jan 25

Notification that my twitter account has been deactivated.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Dec 20

Close up of a black and tan dog’s face. She is snoozing on her favourite person’s bed. Her pupils are fully dilated as she is blind, but it gives her a perpetual ‘puppy dog eyes’ look.

Large black and tan dog completely zonked on her favourite persons bed. There may or may not be some laundry also on the bed.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Dec 19

Ellie says hi!

Large black and tan dog overlooking Okanagan Lake near Kelowna bc. It is a beautiful sunny day and the mountains are reflected in the water across the lake.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Nov 11

@hypervisible.bsky.social travelling today…

Picture of a black suitcase with a sticker that reads “computational tools aren’t going to make people recognize our humanity” in red text. Also a ‘Yeti’ sticker.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Sep 24

From Macgilchrist, F. (2019). Cruel optimism in edtech: When the digital data practices of educational technology providers inadvertently hinder educational equity. Learning, Media and Technology, 44(1) doi.org/10.1080/1743... #edusky #HigherEd #assessment @discoursology.social.coop.ap.brid.gy

Screenshot with highlighted text that reads "In education, no matter how good the motives, and how pedagogically well-founded the decisions, it is a post-democratic moment when the ability to make these decisions has shifted from publicly accountable government officials, policy-makers or educators, to developers, programmers, designers and other staff in private edtech organisations."

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Sep 21

Like this?

Screenshot of a spam follower with no posts and following 708 ppl.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Sep 19

Just finished lunch.

Bald, bearded white guy looking at the camera. He looks grumpy, but isn’t.

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Sep 18

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #1,229,918!

Colin Madland 🇨🇦@cmad· Aug 16

Eleanor says hi. #BlindPup