Dr. Christine H. Tran
@thechristinet.bsky.social
2.9K followers 680 following 460 posts
✨CEO of peer-reviewed vibes (they/she) ✨Tenure-Track Asst Prof @ Alberta University of the Arts ✨Researcher of work, play, livestreaming & creator economy ✨PhD U of Toronto iSchool; formerly LTA Prof @ UTM Game Studies ✨ https://thechristinet.wordpress.com
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What's up, fellow docs? Today, I defended my PhD on Twitch livestreaming & the platform of playing-at-home!

Waves of thanks to all who got me over the finish line: my valiant committee, my pals & anyone who let me watch them play a game 🎮 (1/2)
OP an committee standing and waving before a Zoom screen featuring the hybrid committee members. Screenshot of PhD version of the 2028 game with the win screen "You got a PhD!" Superimposed is a screenshot of OP's dissertation slidedeck. OP in the grad cloth laughing at a Zoom screen of their  committee member using the heart filter. OP standing in the Wonder Woman pose in their grad wrap thing.
EDI is a prerequisite for that coveted "generalizability" fawned over by objectivity fetishists.

Anyways, search the quoted names in this article to know your allies and enemies.
Parliament is debating whether equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) should shape $3.6B in research grants. Supporters say it drives innovation; critics call it politicized. How should Canada balance equity and excellence?

🔗 http://bit.ly/43dhcZc

#EDI #Research #Policy
Parliament reviews EDI for research grants - University Affairs
Witnesses testify for and against applying diversity criteria to scientific funding.
bit.ly
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
Reviewing a manuscript & I can't wait to cite a term it concocts when the final version comes out in 2036!
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
It is morally wrong to want a computer to be sentient. If you owned a sentient thing, you would be a slaver. If you want sentient computers to exist, you just want to create a new kind of slavery. The ethics are as simple as that. Sorry if this offends
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
My latest is on Sora's AI and why we should care about stolen art

For more, follow:
+ www.tiktok.com/@drewharwell
+ www.instagram.com/bydrewharwell
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
This is what happens when society tells techbros they're very very very special people
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
AI is a lack of consent machine

this attitude about creativity is descended from out attitudes about creativity and chattel slavery

we look at certain people's / professions work as a "right" It's public property so they don't deserve respect or credit

most of academia and policy agrees
OpenAI is essentially a social arsonist, developing and releasing tools that hyper scale the most racist, misogynistic, and toxic elements of society, lowering the barriers for all manner of abuse. The so called guardrails make a pinky swear look like an ironclad contract.
This social app can put your face into fake movie scenes, memes and arrest videos
The new Sora social app from ChatGPT maker OpenAI encourages users to upload video of their face so their likeness can be put into AI-generated clips.
www.washingtonpost.com
inside every academic is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast idea that would induce 1-2 divorces
guy from the “anti-groomer” party after his weak apology for publicly telling a child they should be assaulted on the rear:
When I was a pup, we got spanked by Presidents till the cows came home. Grover Cleveland spanked me on two non-consecutive occasions.
Does anyone have $56 billion and know somebody at EA Games? I have an idea.
we need a Frankfurt School for girls + enbies who dreamed of being on the Computer a lot
we need a Frankfurt School for girls + enbies who dreamed of being on the Computer a lot
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
It's good to see that Zach Woods has only become more powerful and based with time.
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
white supremacists and capitalists got so mad at one 18 month stretch of increased labor power that they've agreed to reverse the most complex economy in human history to an agrarian state
* TRUMP ADMINISTRATION RESTRICTING COMMERCIAL DRIVER LICENSES FOR NON-U.S. CITIZENS, USDOT SAYS

@reuters.com
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
Canada nation built (and built and built and built) until the 1970s, then began the great dismantling. I'd pin it to Mulroney era when rails were ripped out across country & Chretien/Harris pulling out of housing funding/backstopping. Canada Post stuff is just another dismantling moment.
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
"Canada Post is on track to lose money" Hum. Duh. It cost less than a toonie to send a letter across Canada.

"Canada Post is a service and not a business" was common knowledge until late stage capitalism brain rotted most people into think if it ain't making money for shareholders, it's failing.
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
I am begging Canadians to understand that Canada Post, like public transit, should not be a business - it's a service.

Canada Post is a lifeline for rural, remote and Northern communities and overall, we need to re-evaluate why people think they "need" random shit delivered ASAP.
The government is reducing service standards and Canada Post’s biggest advantage: its nationwide network.

This plan is about cutting back the postal service instead of investing to give it new revenue tools through things like postal banking. It’s shameful.
Liberal government frees Canada Post to end home delivery, close some post offices | CBC News
With Canada Post on track to lose $1.5 billion in 2025 and contract discussions between the union and the corporation stalled, the federal government is embarking on a modernization plan it says will ...
www.cbc.ca
“‘Landlord’? I prefer to think of myself as a Land Artist/Cultural Organizer whose primary medium is unfixed windows.”
An update on that insane lease term where the landlord owns everything you create during the tenancy:
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
Even the landlords want their cut from livestreaming. Good example of how streaming relies on a background of domestic labor and social reproduction that is ripe for extracting data and money
An update on that insane lease term where the landlord owns everything you create during the tenancy:
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
my gyre: Wide
my falcon: Unhearing
my blood-dimm'd tide: Loosed

ROUGHBEASTCON: 1
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
Just got an email from a scam academic journal asking if I wanted to "explore new advances in White Psychodrama" and it's just got me like: buddy, I can watch the news myself.
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
This right here.
companies make it difficult or impossible to disable ai in their products because it is an authoritarian project made from a stack of consent violations in a trenchcoat

they don't give you a checkbox for "i don't want this and will never use it" because they know many people would check that box
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
Media execs have fallen prey to a propaganda and harassment campaign that has completely divorced them from what people actually want right now.

Both their insular information environments (group chats, podcasts) and ambient noise (Twitter reactionaries) have put them in a very stupid bubble.
currently at record-high search interest for canceling disney plus. pulling kimmel is a bigger deal to the company's bottom line than any of the "woke" scandals of the past 5 years. i think news & entertainment corp execs need put more work into understanding their audience, & get off twitter
Reposted by Dr. Christine H. Tran
i don’t think people on bluesky understand the severity of this situation.

i woke up to literally hundreds of texts from friends and family thinking about either moving back home to india or applying to other countries for jobs. this includes me.
Those on an H1B cannot return to the US from tomorrow (Sunday) unless paying $100K. This is an out-of-the blue presidential action. We’ll see software engineers stranded abroad.

One easy to predict outcome: those on US visas will travel less… for work, for conferences etc.