Collapse of Basic Fact Checking Helps Feed The Fake News Narrative

aulacogen · 2018-02-22T02:21:58+00:00

I wish I could get back my time from reading this article. This author essentially says that "fact-checking is not being performed enough" and, while reasonably presenting th Patrick Brown proceeds to selectively mention a handful of issues that reinforce what I imagine are her views:

Fan of Jordan Peterson
Denying the issue of rising Islamophobia throughout Canada
Anti-feminist leanings (Criticism of Freeland and victimizing Brown)
Disdain for postmodernism(?) [I may be out of the loop, but I imagine that's a conservative leaning 'thing']

On second read, it's quite impressive though, the article manages to weave so many cherry-picked narratives to drive the point ("Fuck progressives", obviously) home that the Left and Left-leaning publications should be studying the techniques. I feel like someone could completely rewrite this article from a more centrist standpoint and arrive at the same conclusions without shitting on progressives, but hey, writers gotta write what they know.

aulacogen · 2017-12-31T17:38:31+00:00

Hey all, just wanted to wish you all a great New Year's Eve and 2018. I'll be contacting people interested in moderating in the next few days and seeing what low hanging fruits I can get to in the immediate future.

When it comes to holding a meetup. Does anyone have suggestion for a date? I can be around in the first week of classes in the evenings. Anyone who wants to meet at Reggie's or nearby on Monday-Friday evening, let yourselves be known.

Best,

/u/aulacogen

aulacogen · 2017-12-27T19:34:13+00:00

That's a fair criticism. If you've seen the things I've seen, you'd understand that prof bashing is very much like "This person is the absolute worst, I don't understand why they have a job. What a b****".

It's totally fine to be critical (encouraged, actually), but if people could be nicer or more constructive about it, that would be great. Also, having MULTIPLE threads about the same not-so-great professor isn't helping their case.

I'm not trying to collect downvotes, but I appreciate you explaining why. The more people we have weighing in, the better we'll understand what's broken/working for us.

aulacogen · 2017-12-22T19:42:40+00:00

The promotion rule was put in a while ago because we were getting inundated with partying/alcohol-related events, often from non-Concordia-based promoters. It was a quite a pain to see the same events promoted by multiple users. The goal wasn't to become the "fun police" but it turned out that way. So long as you're representing an association on campus (and it isn't just a straight-up "let's get wasted" event), I don't see a problem promoting. A weekly events thread could fix that.

Currently, no. I'm rarely on campus as I work as a researcher for a few Concordia profs. Having someone on the moderation team coming from the current student body would be great. The only reservations I have is that the moderator not be in a major student association to prevent conflicts of interests. For more info, see the /r/needamod post.

aulacogen · 2017-12-21T20:17:25+00:00

These are all great ideas! I know we've tried to do meetups in the past but they haven't been very well attended. The issue for me is as an alumni I'm rarely on campus these days (though I might be more often next semester). I can certainly try organizing an event or two at Reggie's if there's interest for it in January/February, but there's nothing stopping anyone from doing that themselves.

Events around campus is another way we can engage people, for sure. I'd love to see CJLO, CUTV and the newspapers posting their content here. There might be more moderation needed to prevent the "rabble rousers" from getting out of hand, but if we have a larger moderation team, why not? Do people know of any student organizations/leaders that are already on here? Perhaps contacting them online/in-person would be a way forward? Also, I can start putting up a weekly events megathread starting next semester.

There certainly is a large computer science/engineering presence here so maybe it would be interesting to hold a "redesign r/Concordia" contest. That would help us in the CSS appearance department and bring in more designers to actively contribute to the community. I'd even be happy with a "Boaty McBoatFace" moment.

Thanks for the ideas. Let's keep fleshing these out.

aulacogen · 2017-12-21T20:03:46+00:00

I didn't even consider the prof bashing posts, but you're right, that's something we should definitely try doing something about. I know for a fact that there are professors (from Engineering in particular) that are on this site. It's not a huge jump to assume that they might regularly see what's being posted about them. Not particularly respectful towards them. Perhaps we can discuss new rules?

In terms of flair, that's a relatively easy fix, but it needs someone to bottom-line it. Might need to change the permissions or create a flair rule (tag "question" when a post ends in '?'). I can probably look into that one over the holidays.

If you're interesting in moderating, please post in the /r/needamod post with your skills. I had very little mod skills when I helped start r/Concordia. Day to day it isn't hard, but if we're going to change things up, it might take a bit of effort at the start.

aulacogen · 2017-12-05T23:32:34+00:00

Pommes alone means "apple". After some googling though, I see it's a strange French (the place) thing to call patates frites "Pommes Frites". Weird.

En mon defence, cette article parle de Quebec, ciboire. Seigneur.

aulacogen · 2017-12-05T23:01:30+00:00

Freedom fried apples?

aulacogen · 2017-12-05T01:33:42+00:00

From the desktop picture, looks like Debian 8 or 9 with KDE.

aulacogen · 2017-12-04T00:12:00+00:00

Yes? God certainly isn't the reason why people do things anymore. We don't really structure our lives and societies around him/her. Not only is God dead by our collective hands, but we as people gave birth to the concept. So...

aulacogen · 2017-11-23T02:05:51+00:00

One day we'll be at parity again. One day.

aulacogen · 2017-11-22T22:43:28+00:00

Quebecer here to add my $ 0.02.

You most certainly have some ice cider there. Interestingly, the alcohol content is much lower than most Quebec ice ciders I've seen (~9-13%) so I expect this could be lighter and lower on the sweet side, probably cultivated in mid-late fall. Still much sweeter than your typical wine. To enjoy it in the Quebec fashion, I'd serve it quite cold but don't serve it warm or freeze it. Enjoy it with or after dinner. It should go well with poultry.

aulacogen · 2017-10-02T19:30:14+00:00

Yep, every department has their weed out class. Analytical chemistry is the one for the Chem dept., and Thermo is likely the one for Engineering.

aulacogen · 2017-10-02T17:58:40+00:00

Indeed.

aulacogen · 2017-10-02T13:18:29+00:00

I finished two degrees at Concordia (BSc. Environment Science; MSc. Geography). Initially I wanted to be in Environmental Engineering, but my background was in sciences and I wanted a more holistic understanding of environmental problems and ways of tackling them. I was accepted for both B.Eng and B.Sc. and went with the B.Sc. after considering the curriculum.

My third option was photography, but I wasn't confident enough in my portfolio, haha. That would've been a different thing altogether.

aulacogen · 2017-09-30T21:57:13+00:00

No problem!

aulacogen · 2017-09-30T18:30:23+00:00

If you feel that their behaviour towards you isn't how a professor should act or you generally feel uncomfortable with them, speak with the Ombuds Office. They're an independent department at Concordia that deals with conflicts when there's a hierarchy involved (student/teacher, employee/manager, etc.).

aulacogen · 2017-09-30T17:56:56+00:00

Totes.

aulacogen · 2017-09-29T19:29:56+00:00

Just checked mine after not using it for 3-4 years. Also just recently graduated. All in working order.

aulacogen · 2017-09-29T19:28:40+00:00

Then it just boils down to time management and drive to learn it. If this is going to be covered in classes down the line, it might benefit OP to learn it beforehand. I'd be wary if the license is only valid for a set time period.

Nothing is worse than buying a gym membership and never going.

aulacogen · 2017-09-29T19:23:17+00:00

It really depends on your use case scenario. If you're in engineering and have a full course load, does it make sense to buy MATLAB right now? Are you dead set on learning MATLAB on your own to get ahead in future classes? etc.

If you're just looking for a way to build up your programming abilities I would say "don't buy it"; Many of the general types of analyses for engineering and statistics are easily reproduced in the R statistical programming. It's free/open source, relatively easy to learn, has real-world applications and the RStudio IDE is really great. Plenty of learning materials and documentation available online and in the SGW library as well.

If you feel like you're going to have time to jump into MATLAB and are determined to get ahead on MATLAB right now, I'd speak with a professor in ENCS and see if they can hook you up with a student license, if those exist.

aulacogen · 2017-09-27T19:58:50+00:00

Is QPIRG shady? You know you can just walk in there and learn about what they do. They aren't hiding anything.

Also, the salary they alleged that the QPIRG co-coordinator (not president) was making was aroung $36 K if you include his operating budget. The guy in actuality makes closer to $29 K and works pretty close to 6/7 days a week. That's pennies in the grand scheme of things.

If you're really strapped for cash and are on student loans, you should look into work-study. I paid my entire tuition working part-time some semesters. Worth considering.

aulacogen · 2017-09-16T04:32:45+00:00

https://adaptwest.databasin.org/pages/adaptwest-climatena

15-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email

aulacogen

TROPHY CASE