The future is now fellow old man (my joints hurt just typing this). If it helps, I remember the comforting noises of a 14.4k modem connecting me to the world wide web.

Take anything Palantir says about democracy as either a dog whistle or a threat. Palantirs product is mass surveillance and criminal behavior prediction (location, whereabouts, movement patterns). That’s authoritarian, but not necessarily antidemocratic. You can still vote and be a democracy with mass (edit: typo was with ass survelliance…might still work) surveillance, don’t conflate it.

Where the anti Democratic comes in is using that surveillance to prevent people from exercising their right to vote and manipulating their information so they vote how you want. That’s what Palantir is enabling.

Aside: Its nuts how accurate their name is in spirit. Almost commendable they carried through embracing the name and the power behind it.

A Labyrinth reference? Glorious.

Reading this makes me realize how ignorant I am on all things tech.

The Kardashians and any reality show that needs to showcase a phone call for the audience. That is exactly how this all got to the level it did. People who watched and were raised on that media learned to use a phone like that and do.

That’s my theory.

Which is a tragedy. Many reasons pertaining to why that is the exception.

You can still fake it. Have AI write the essay, you “write” a first draft and simulate edits here and there. You can also prompt AI to writer a first, second, and third draft and detail changes. Then you manually make them over time. Turn it in.

Look, this is a chance for teaching and grading to change. It needs to as the traditional methods which were failing from budget cuts, overuse of shit tools, etc, weren’t working. Put learning, not evaluation, in the classroom and you can avoid AI abuse. I am an N of 1, but I’m telling you there are teachers out there who are amazing because they approach teaching without regurgitation and grade based progress. AI thrives at both.

Go grab Frier, read pedagogy of the oppressed, and then start researching contract grading.

In my in person classes I used contract grading and weighed in class participation and case studies at 75% of their contract. The final was optional and was from a list of possible choices. I’d focus on providing mentorship and feedback, not grading them, simulating real world growth and learning. I had no AI problems and both I and my students generally loved it.

I taught one online class. It sucked. I hated it. Rampant AI and totally fabricated everything. Even reflection paragraph posts. I need to learn how to design an online class like my in person ones. Until then, never again.

Most of the AI users were student athletes. I can quantify this, so I’m not exagerating. They would miss classes for travel, turn in AI slop, and I would have to fail them over and over. That online class was 60% student athletes. I tried so hard to talk sense and be accommodating, but it was unabashed AI everything. It was bad.

The student athletes are getting more screwed than normal because they are just faking it through college and getting exploited by the NCAA for money.

Foxhole, the Airborne update has been fun. I alsonreturned to Valheim just to do chill builds.

Thanks for the response.

I’ll have a look. I don’t journal, I’ve gone through spurts on trying and never keeping up. Likely just my inability to schedule it into my day.

Everyone commenting. I urge you to stop oversimplified responses such as ACAB and they are all trained murderers. Stop. You do no one any service with such vitriol. OPs post warrants a deeper dive.

The US military is broken. Has been for awhile. It does not train you to become a mindless killer. It trains you to be an efficient and effective killer, which is very different. However, it has very few effective safeguards to prevent efficient and effective from working alongside or enhancing the criminal power of rage and ignorance to create a real murderer. That’s the problem. There are no safeguards. No safeguards in a world where very young, very inexperienced kids are given a rifle and asked to be adults. Let me explain.

You’re taught how to kill or be killed, how to clear rooms, how to save your friends. You’re taught your specialty. How to shoot rockets, setup a radio, run a fueler. However. You are shown the Rules of War, Geneva convention, lawful orders, etc in a PowerPoint in the conference room at Battalion once a year. And everyone knows its a joke. No one teaches you those things, let alone how to understand and care about them. Indeed, you get nothing for caring. If you get to the military with a non-education, you’re doomed before the first bad slide hits the dim old screen. But that’s big world accountability. There’s granular issues that are way, way worse bits about what is prized and what is shunned.

If you don’t hit your targets at the range, fail to salute, miss PT you get in deep shit. If your NCO orders you to read the Bible or kick a kid in Iraq, well, you’re better off shutting up and obeying an unlawful order because you’ll face so many problems all at once. Not just being labeled a blue falcon for reporting someone (which won’t go anywhere) but likely jail, military court, and a ruined life because the system will let you down. Even if you win, your career is over. You will benthat guy forever. There is no accountability. There is no justice. For speaking up and doing what’s right.

So you see the problem. Compound that now with who is a soldier, who is an NCO, and yes, who might be an officer. Not your butter bars and E5s, but your E7s and majors and up. The ones that really can wreck your life. These are people generally from parts of the country already suffering from poverty, bad education, and a highly influential religious and racial ordering dating back at least to reconstruction. There is nothing in the military that can alleviate any of that. In fact, how the military is structured just enforces it and that’s another problem. We recruit, tolerate, and promote a system that makes accountability a weakness, intolerance reenforced, and morality wrong because in part its run by the people who don’t want Private Snuffy from West Virginia to change.

Private Snuffy is, as I said, likely from West Virginia. He’s not a bad guy, is 18, and has no prospects in his economically dead state. He has no idea his state was in the Union, his great grandpa fought in a full on labor union rebellion, or that people there once championed community and solidarity. He has, at best, a poor understanding of the world and even less agency than a cricket in a tarantula pen. He’s been told who to be and what to do forever. At best, he had both parents and no health issues unlike many in his community. Let’s go with that, but he is still in for a world of hurt.

The people above him could be good. A decent officer here, a good NCO there. But instead, he will be exposed to quite a few morally bankrupt officers and NCOs. These are the ones that will mold Private Snuffy into someone willing to shoot a citizen. Because they run his day to day life. They have control over him and if he is observant, he’ll see the good NCOs and the good officers leave or fight for spots where they can be left alone to do cool work like at a command school or some NATO attachment. The rest, well, they suggest private Snuffy turn a blind eye when one brings an underage girl to the barracks. They’ll help get their friends at that one church promoted and avoid staff duty. They’ll say certain people aren’t American and sing cadences about them. They’ll make or break his life and his future. And Private Snuffy has no future without them. They are Weinsteins. He has no chance. He can’t report them, no one will punish them, and they are the majority. The military does not do anything against these people. There is no system to keep them from making Private Snuffy an angry, intolerant, soldier willing to kill a neighbor. But let’s assume Snuffy isn’t going for that.

So you’ve got Private Snuffy, 25/30 on the range. 300 pt score (or whatever is max now). He’s commended for all that. Rewarded. He keeps his head down and doesn’t speak up at “the south will rise again” jokes. He sees this isn’t for him. He has four years and has to shut up or his life is fucked. He can’t speak up or he’ll loose out on E-4, or get stuck slopping gravy on trays at Thanksgiving again. He shuts up, makes E5, and doesn’t reup. He made E5 because he played the game. The terrible people don’t talk him into singing up for more, because he’s a liability, but not a blue falcon. So he is out.

But 29 other people in his platoon were cool with it all, or ignore it, and the problem persists.

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I read through all the comments and responses. @harfang@slrpnk.net you need to make slides quick and easy using drag and drop and font layouts. That’s why you use Canva from what I can tell. So getting hardcore image manipulation is not necessary, nor collaborative style programs.

You can, with minimal effort, use Libreoffice Impress. Its PowerPoint without the Microslop. What this requires is you find a good source for properly licensed fonts and images, places like Pixabay and such.

You can use GIMP if you want to, but it reads like you just need to learn to use the tools in Impress. Again, GIMP is basically a Photoshop replacement. I’m not sure you need that.

Here is my work flow I used to make pretty slides and lecture decks that rely on prompts and imagery for students, not death by text:

-Outline in Libreoffice Writer. -Search for images on Pixabay, Unsplash, or Wikimedia Commons. -Search for, or use incorporated, fonts. Two to three font faces. -Build a draft presentstion in Libreoffice Impress -Set it down, walk away for a bit. -Return and edit as needed.

I’m not sure if GIMP is an alternative if you’re looking for drag and drop?

I use Libre Impress for slides, unsplash/pixabay/wikimedia commons for high quality images.

Thank you. That’s wonderful to read.

Makes sense. Small town (10,000). Community college nearby and a larger uni in the city about 45 minutes by rail.

Why writing by LaTex and what is the reason for it? I’ve written loads over the years but never in LaTex.

I can ride a bike with no hands! Great success! I spent the last 3 months trying and can navigate speed bumps, pot holes, and small curves now without hands. I have not, yet, broken anything but there’s still time ;-)

The narcissism is in others, yes, in this field.

Is there an alternative at this point? I tried Brave on a recommendation and its got AI integrated from default with opt out required.

Always enjoy getting these simple words in this forum. Truly.

Much love and thanks!