#lab automation tool

[ailifehacks]

🌐 AlphaEvolve AI Discovery: Automated Scientific Breakthroughs in Research Algorithms

AlphaEvolve AI discovery revolutionizes research with automated scientific insights. Explore how this breakthrough tool reshapes algorithms, experimentation, data analysis, and lab efficiency today. When researchers seek cutting-edge innovation, AlphaEvolve AI discovery accelerates science by automating hypothesis generation, data interpretation, and algorithmic optimization through advanced…

[commsaquitilabs]

https://www.acuitilabs.com/q2c-customerportal/

[virtualizationhowto]

Docker Swarm vs Kubernetes: Home Lab Comparison

Docker Swarm vs Kubernetes: Home Lab Comparison @vexpert #vmwarecommunities #homelab #DockerSwarmHomeLab #KubernetesHomeLab #ContainerOrchestrationComparison #ManagingContainers #DockerSwarmVsKubernetes #DockerTools #cloudnative #Kubernetes

For those seeking to delve into the realm of containers within their home lab environments, many options are available, including Docker Desktop, Rancher Desktop, and Minikube, among others. Yet, for enthusiasts seeking to venture into building out systems resembling production environments, Docker Swarm clusters and Kubernetes emerge as widely favored container orchestration tools. Each carries…

[cnestus]

Hello !! I was wondering, is AI gonna have a role in your field?

I don't think there's a single knowledge-based profession out there that isn't under threat of being automated by some pig ignorant dipshit beancounting middle manager with a hardon for AI and entomology is certainly no exception. even before the big AI explosion of the last couple years people have been trying for a long time to automate pest arthropod identification, but at least so far they haven't been successful. Especially when it comes to things like bark beetles, which I specialize on, the differences between a harmless native species and an intensely destructive exotic one can be unbelievably subtle, not to mention the fact that new/cryptic species are always being discovered and that's not something an AI would ever be able to detect or understand.

That doesn't mean that our jobs aren't still under constant threat even by an algorithm that would do a piss-poor job of imitating us; the executive perverts that get all hot and bothered by the idea of replacing humans with fancified autocomplete functions have a vested interest in not understanding the nuances of the professions they're killing and as long as it's good enough or even just appears to be good enough, they'll push for it.

Also let's not forget one thing about "AI" which is that half the time it's actually just a marketing term used to cover up the usual outsourcing/offshoring to cheaper workforces that has been ongoing for the last 30 years. My lab was recently and repeatedly pestered by someone selling "AI moth traps" that purported to be able to identify any pest species of moth that flew into it. When we pressed him on it it turns out that part of the service it offered was that the moths would be photographed by a little digital camera in the device and the pics sent to a team of entomologists in Hungary to confirm. Aside from the fact that a lot of small moths need to be carefully examined under a microscope and often even have their genitalia dissected by an expert to be confirmed as a particular species, this is no different then any of the other supposed AI products that have been revealed over the last couple years as just being a shiny veneer over the same old digital sweatshops on the other side of the world.

More importantly though, even if the AI moth traps did work as advertised either through the ~*magic of machine learning*~ or desperate poorly paid eastern european entomologists either way it's yet another thin edge of the wedge designed to put me and my colleagues out of a job by convincing our bosses or our bosses' bosses that there's a cheaper and more efficient alternative and I view them and literally anything else marketed as AI as part of the same anti-human push to deskill and demoralize as much of the workforce as possible. I've never once used chatGPT or any other LLM, I've never used an AI image generator, and I will never, ever fucking use any purported AI entomology tool because aside from being shined up dogshit it is an existential threat to the discipline I've dedicated almost 20 years of my life to.

[cupidsncheerios]

jayvik au where viktor is the name of an ai automated lab assistant in jayce’s workplace that operates various precision tools like the hexclaw, and viktor slowly gains sentience as the researchers shift his role from mechanical aid to full on lab butler getting coffee for them and shit

eventually viktor falls in love with jayce because jayce is the only person in this lab of complete assholes that says thank you after viktor helps them

[tmntxthings]

heyy so I literally got this kind of idea like not really long ago, how about a donnie x reader fic/scenario/prompt where donnie makes a new AI hologram assistant (the reader) but ends up falling in love with them ?? (kind of blade runner 2049 inspired)

thanks ! luv your work (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

一∑ Dizzy・゜・。

author’s notes: so this may not be exactly what you asked for, this donnie is a bit… cagey? protective? overbearing! but hopefully the ending is a good indication that he did indeed fall?? :D

warnings: fluff, platonic to romantic, cursing, very unedited, & super short >.<

word association: sentience, slight yandere!donnie, light projection, holograms, creation, possessive, obsessive, fluff, change, feelings

song: “ Round & Round by Selena Gomez ”

—————————————————————————

“Y/n”

Donnie waited for you to appear in his vision as he was glued to a new construct. Both hands busy with small tools that required the utmost care and attention. And patience.

He waited a couple of more seconds before a crease appeared between his draw on brows.

Seriously?

“Y/n!”

Donnie shouted louder. There was no way you couldn’t hear him. He was this close to pushing up his goggles but like magic you apparated in his vision. A tiny version of yourself in the corner of his eyesight, “Yyyessss?”

You drawled, dipping forward dramatically but not obscuring his view of his hands so he could continue his work.

“Where are you?”

Habitually it seemed he had to ask you this. He was like this with Shelldon too. But ever since you started getting curious and venturing out of his lab, he just had to at least check in…

He would have just checked your holo-tracker but his hands were busy at the moment. So calling out your name was more efficient. His wrist tech was voice automated and connected to your system easily enough.

“And why did you ignore my first call?”

He questioned further, eyebrows still drawn. His tongue peeked out between his lips as he carefully pieced together two small bits in the right formation.

“I thought we agreed Donnie. If you didn’t need me, I could explore the perimeters!”

You glitched momentarily, moving from the corner to right in the center of his vision before going back to your original place with a raised brow.

“Yes yes. That was the agreement but addendum six was—“

You groaned.

“Y/n it’s been… how long has it been..?”

He just knew it had to be four or so hours since you last checked in. Which meant he could call! As per agreement! If you didn’t check in then he would worry and a time frame was even added into fine print for this very purpose! Donatello prided himself on thinking of every-little-thing!

“It’s been 30 minutes.”

His eyes widened. Looking at you now and squinting.

No way.

You sighed dramatically as you brought up the time. Sure enough. It was only 2:30 in the morning. Not 5.

“Ah, well my mistake.”

Donnie placed down the tools and pushed up his goggles. The zoomed in version of his project gone, as well as the time and your miniature self.

He could still hear you though with his headphones on.

“You didn’t answer my first question…”

He still wanted to know.

“I think that should be void considering you can just check now!”

Your voice was exasperated but it had a teasing quality.

“I’d rather you tell me,”

“With your brothers!”

“What?!”

No response. “Y/n?” No response still. He grumbled bringing his goggles back down and yep, you were gone. He shoved them back up and shot out of his chair.

Two years ago. Donatello went a step further from robots. A step further from Shelldon, definitely still a very proud achievement of his! You were a hologram program. One that connected just like Shelldon to all of Donatello’s devices and gadgets. But you didn’t have a physical body. You were a pure light so to speak. And while Donnie had agreed for you to explore…he hadn’t really disclosed another sentient being in the lab to his brothers.

Selfishly… Donnie had created you solely for him. While Shelldon had been sort of a prank but definitely for his brothers… you weren’t.

“Y/n.” Shelldon whispered harshly as he peeked out of the doorway from his lab. You were nowhere in the vicinity. He scowled. “If this is supposed to be funny, let me be very clear! It is not!” Then Donnie started to rush with his words while he crept further out into the lair.

“Those dumdums have no idea of your existence Y/n! For all we know they could— I don’t know! Attack?!”

You were radio silent. And it annoyed to Donnie to know end. You were ignoring him on purpose. Dragging him away from work to chase you down. And he would do the dragging this time, right back to his side if he must!

The further he went, the more apprehensive he felt. He could hear music. He could hear hollering. It was not the right cues that said ‘Y/n is just pranking me! They wouldn’t reveal themselves without my go-ahead! Surely!’ Yeah none of that was feeling close to happening right now. Donatello’s teeth ground together as he gave up being stealthy in favor of finally seeing what the fuck was happening.

And boy was he in for a shock.

As he cleared a corner that gave him a full view of the arcade that stretched down a distance away. The DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) was on, bass pumping throughout the room. A beautiful voice beckoning him closer like a siren’s song. Where Raph was dancing on one side. And you on the other.

Donnie stopped short. His breath catching as he watched your hologram dance, when your shoes met the correct arrows your whole body took on a glow of purple, blue, red, and yellow. It reflected throughout your entire being. You hit perfect after perfect, head tipped back in laughter as Raph started to trip up, losing his footing and sweating profusely. You on the other hand would never tire.

You were completely energized. You were having fun! It shined in your eyes. It reminded him of how you were when he first created you. When everything he introduced to you excited you.

Donnie felt like such an ass. Keeping you tucked away from the rest of the lair. From his brothers. From the world! As he watched you now he knew he was going to have to change. Because he surely wasn’t letting you go completely. But maybe he needed to loosen up, him and his contract.

Because he wanted you to be like this more. To smile more. To be exuberant and full of life! And he couldn’t stop smiling as you tilted your head towards him. You didn’t falter, you just smiled brighter and winked as the song came to a close and the points were tallied up.

Of course anything created by Donnie would be extraordinary at dancing. Therefore it didn’t surprise him one bit that you received a maximum score of 10,000,000. What did throw him off guard was the rapid pace of his heart. And maybe a bit dizzy? He hadn’t even been the one dancing!

Yeah this wasn’t good!

—————————————————————————

[trashcanlore]

A Crack Theory About Maze

Alternatively: Everyone in Natlan is dead and I can prove it with 3 easy tools I already have in my brain

*Record scratch* I bet you're wondering how we got here. Well, it all started when I was playing through Simulanka and saw the carpet on the floor of Constellation Metropole. The pattern reminded me of player piano scrolls, and since my brain needs to be studied in a lab, that then reminded me of Westworld. (Slight spoilers for season 1 follow)

Westworld is a sci-fi-ish TV show about a futuristic amusement park recreating the Wild West, featuring interactive storylines where guests can act out their hearts' darkest desires. The only ‘people’ hurt are the hosts, who are basically the android NPCs of the park. Hosts are part of greater park narratives, and individually operate within their story loops, unless disturbed by the outside forces of guests. At the end of each day, the hosts are reset/memory wiped/repaired (unless the narrative says differently) and return to experience the horrors anew. The player piano is used as a visual and narrative motif throughout Westworld to represent the cyclical and automated lives of the hosts; similarly, the clockwork in Constellation Metropole represents the strictly laid out paths of the toys while under the ‘protection’ of the Goddess of Prophecy. 

Convinced this carpet pattern was an intentional reference, and knowing that summer events foreshadow the new region, I flung myself headfirst into themes and narratives delulu (a season 1 rewatch) and during that rewatch I realized that a different Westworld plot point and visual motif might be what's actually foreshadowing for my mostly vibes-based theory: Everyone in Natlan is dead.

THE MAZE

The imagery of a humanoid figure in a maze is used throughout Westworld, explained within the narrative of the park as a Native American myth. According to the in-park mythology, the maze represents “the sum of a man’s life,” and the man in the center has been killed and resurrected many times, eventually building the maze around himself as protection. (Resurrection is a very common theme in Indigenous American mythology.) There is a human character who is trying to solve the maze, and for a time he believes the center of the maze is true death, something that does not exist in the park because the guests cannot be killed (by the hosts) and the hosts can always be repaired.

This myth is based on the real life creation myth of the Tohono O'odham people, where the Man in the Maze, I’itoi, created the world in an intense struggle and then retired to a labyrinthian cave on top of a mountain. In art, I’itoi is depicted above a maze, which represents the experiences and choices of a person throughout their lives. The middle of the maze represents their goals and dreams, and once they reach the center, they can look back and then pass into the next world.

According to some tellings of the myth, I’itoi was killed by the humans he created and taught. He then resurrected himself, invented the concept of war, and then brought the Tohono O’odham people to the surface of the earth to be his soldiers. 

Fun fact: This creation story is actually referenced in ZZZ, with the Papago hollow (Papago is an alternate name for the Tohono O’odham people).

In Westworld, the maze is actually a thought exercise and model developed by the programmer behind the park hosts. His theory of consciousness was that it was achieved through a journey inward, and when a host reached the center of the maze, they would achieve true consciousness and be ‘free.’ 

Maze iconography in the Americas is not unique to the Tohono O'odham people - another notable example is the Hopi Tapuat. This labyrinth (technically only has one path) represents the human life cycle and eventual (spiritual) rebirth.

While researching maze symbolism, I read a few articles that mentioned Mesoamerican mazes being used to trap the spirits of the dead, but unfortunately, I couldn't find any specific source for that information. However, it is possible to connect maze imagery to the Aztec and Mayan beliefs about the Underworld. Multiple archaeological excavations have uncovered huge networks of caves, tunnels, and rooms underground that may have been built to represent the journey to the underworld and/or provide a location for rituals associated with death. (You can read more about this here: 1 2 3)

As for the underworld itself, both the Aztec Mictlan and the Maya Xibalba are described as containing all kinds of traps and challenges for the dead passing through - and can’t forget the ballcourt (in Xibalba at least). Ball is life. While this isn’t exactly a maze, I will argue that for the sake of this crack theory, it’s close enough thematically. 

Smoke and Mirrors

You may have recognized the name Mictlan, because in Genshin, that’s one of the names for the Masters of the Night-Wind tribe, which can be alternatively translated as “Masters of the Mysterious Smoke.” This will be relevant later, I promise. 

The Natlan craftable sword, the Flute of Ezpitzal, is described as being a ritual instrument of this tribe, and the description tells the story of how humans and dragons came to a (local?) agreement to ensure their survival. The dragons had fled into dreams because of the fire of “ancient beacons,” and when the humans asked for their protection, they offered the following: 

"A labyrinth of mirrors and a fortress of mist, these shall we build to shield your tiny mortal tribes from the scourge of war." 

The theme continues with the name of the sword’s passive: “smoke-and-mirror mystery,” and the upcoming Archon Quest “Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors.” The phrase “smoke and mirrors” is an idiom for distracting from something unpleasant, but in the context of Natlan lore, it’s almost certainly referring to the smoking obsidian mirror iconography. 

Mirrors of all kinds were used throughout ancient Mesoamerica for divination and scrying-like rituals, including communication with otherworld entities. The most well known mirror material used was obsidian, which was also used for blades and tools - the black color of obsidian is probably what led to its association with smoke (also you can use mirrors to start fires). Obsidian mirrors were associated with additional imagery such as fire, the sun, eyes, butterflies, and caves as the entrance to the underworld. Mirrors were also compared to the surface of still water (a straightforward comparison) - one interesting example is Aztec writing that referred to Aztlan (mythical origin of Aztec people) as ‘the great water mirror that surrounds the great city.’ There was even a period of time where the mirror was used as a metaphor to represent the world itself. 

This is similar to what Mona says about Simulanka: fate in Simulanka is directly based on Teyvat’s, and that “the creator made this world inside a mirror, or a lake, and this world is the reflection.” 

Here’s where things start to get interesting: there is a Nahuatl glyph for the smoking obsidian mirror, specifically associated with a god who we’ll discuss later. The scroll-like shape used for the smoke is very similar to the symbol used for speech, singing, or breath.

This shape is also very similar to the older Mayan glyph for smoke - which happens to be basically identical to the symbol used for blood. You can see an example here in this famous carving from Yaxchilan:

The link between smoke and blood is actually explicitly referenced in the name of the Flute of Ezpitzal. Ezpitzal is a Nahuatl word meaning ‘gust of blood’ - eztli is blood and pitza is ‘to blow,’ as in playing a flute. Pitza is also sometimes translated “becoming inflamed with anger.” The ezpitzal symbol is made up of six streams of blood, ending in a precious stone, with a heart in the center:

The ezpitzal can be found flowing from the head of older depictions of Tezcatlipoca “smoking mirror,” the Lord of the Night. 

The Lord of the Night

Tezcatlipoca is one of the central Aztec gods, associated with the night sky, hurricanes, and conflict, and the calendar. He was typically depicted with a missing foot due to a monster attack and a smoking obsidian mirror somewhere on his body. The missing right foot is usually replaced with a smoking obsidian mirror, a snake, or a bone. Tezcatlipoca has similarities to the earlier Maya deities Tohil (god of fire and associated with sacrifice) and K’awiil (thunder god), who is depicted with a smoking obsidian knife in his forehead and one leg replaced with a snake. 

The smoking mirror glyph associated with Tezcatlipoca looks a little bit like the obsidian carvings in the Night Kingdom:

Besides for the title of Lord of the Night, Tezcatlipoca is Genshin lore relevant as the rival of Quetzalcoatl. In one version of the Five Suns Aztec creation myth, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl are creation gods and take turns being suns and destroying each other’s work. Quetzalcoatl hasn’t been mentioned by name in Natlan yet, but his Maya equivalent, Kukulkan (“Plumed Serpent”), also known as Waxaklahun Ubah Kan (“War Serpent”) sure has. In Genshin, Waxaklahun Ubah Kan, or the Sage of the Stolen Flame, stole a seed of phlogiston from the dragons and taught the humans how to use it. He is shown alongside Xbalanque, the first Pyro Archon, on a mural, where they both appear to hold phlogiston. There’s something important missing here: How did the Genshin equivalent of Tezcatlipoca contribute to the ‘creation’ of humans?

In the 5.1 trailer, the Lord of the Night and the “protection of the rules” are mentioned. The only information we have about the Lord of the Night is that in the misleading Records of Hanan Pacha, he leads humans astray and is the enemy of Waxaklahun Ubah Kan, and that a cat in the Night Kingdom warns us against trusting the Sage.

The set of rules we know the most about are the ones created by Xbalanque, using borrowed power from the heavens (Ronova). These are the rules that allow humans to become Archons and inherit the memories of the land. 

The other, more mysterious set of rules, are those that allow Ancient Name bearers to resurrect through the Sacred Flame with the help of the Archon. The Sacred Flame is a conduit to the Night Kingdom and the Wayobs, and is fueled by Contending Fire produced by battles between Natlan people. Given that Tezcatlipoca is a god of conflict, I think these rules mentioned in the trailer are referring to the Sacred Flame system of resurrection. 

Therefore, at some point during Natlan’s history, the beef between the Sage and the Lord of the Night became so severe that the Lord of the Night’s contribution to the system of Natlan was intentionally covered up- which may be what Capitano is hinting at in the 5.1 trailer when he says Mavuika is withholding information from us. 

This was a bit of a tangent, but I promise it’s relevant to the thesis. At the conclusion of the Five Suns myth, Quetzalcoatl descends into Mictlan to find the bones of the humans he created under earlier suns, and who were destroyed by various god antics, including those of Tezcatlipoca. He then uses his own blood to bring the humans back to life. Maybe my insistence that everyone in Natlan is dead isn’t so vibe based after all. 

The Center 

It is time for me to confess something. In actuality, these 2k words were elaborate setup for a pun. 

Here it goes: At the conclusion of the K’iche’ Maya creation story, the Popul Vuh, the gods finally find the perfect material for creating humans who will worship them: maize. The hurricane god and the Quetzal serpent sculpt the first humans out of a maize paste, with water for blood. Conveniently, these two can be directly compared to Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca - further supporting the possibility of the latter’s important role in Natlan’s history. 

Earlier, I mentioned how water and mirrors were closely associated, and how the glyphs for blood and smoke look similar. The Flute of Ezpitzal name and lore reference the protection of humans with a ‘labyrinth of mirrors,’ smoking mirrors (weapon passive), and blood through the word ezpitzal. The ezpitzal is also closely linked to Tezcatlipoca, one of the Aztec creator deities. Using this symbolism, the smoke and mirrors represent the water, or blood, used to (re)create humans. Which then means of course that the second ingredient needed for humans is maze - I’m sorry, maize. 

And if the humans are made out of maze…well then they must be dead. 

Sabre’s Fun Fact Science Corner (with bonus Latam literature section just for Schwan):

The Genshin writers love the story of the Hero Twins defeating Seven Macaw and replacing his teeth with maize - they’ve referenced it at least three times so far. The weirdest is the flipped version where the human priest Maghan sacrifices himself and combines his blood with animal teeth and dirt to create grainfruit (maize). Autosacrifice of blood in particular was a very important Maya ritual. I appreciate their commitment to keeping the maize cannibalism implications going.  

The Narzissenkreuz Ordo associated lore has had multiple references to circular ruins and mirrors (which may simply just be the Alice in Wonderland reference) - however, we do know that one Ordo member went to Natlan looking for Something. “The Circular Ruins” is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges where a man tries to create another man through dreaming, with the help of a deity known as “Fire.” The story itself references Through the Looking-Glass as well. 

This one is full credit to Schwan but there’s a Mexican novel Pedro Páramo, which was very influential on other Latin American writers like Gabriel García Márquez. The plot is basically that this guy travels to the town where his father is from to meet him and then it turns out that everyone in the town is dead. It’s very core. 

It turns out Westworld season 1 is extremely HYV core - I just know some guy there saw the last episode and had their brain rewired, much like Dawei seeing Misato Evangelion for the first time

References: https://www.library.pima.gov/content/man-in-the-maze/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27itoi https://westworld.fandom.com/wiki/The_Maze

[iam-themechanic]

Brains shuffles into the lab, blueprints in one hand, and a large cup of coffee in the other. He spots Chris already at the workbench, analysing the schematics to their latest project.

"Good morning," Brains says with a nod in the other man's direction. He sets his cup of coffee down carefully and rolls out the blueprints before all but collapsing into his chair.

He can feel the exhaustion seeping through his skin into his bones. He rubs his eyes before readjusting his glasses and taking a large swig of coffee.

"What have we g-got on the agenda today?" He asks.

The Mechanic had been sat at the workbench for a while when he heard Brains shuffle in, balancing blueprints and coffee in his arms. He hadn't had the best night - dread memories lingering behind his eyelids ruined his already-patchy sleep - so he'd opted to read over gadget prototype schematics as a way to calm his mind down.

"Good morning." He replies, shuffling his chair off to the side to give Brains a little bit more room to sit. He carefully swept an arm across a few tools, moving them to the far side of the desk so the coffee cup could be put down safely. No need for spillages or accidents first thing in the morning.

"There are various tasks that demand our attention." He starts, flicking over to the endless stream of jobs and reminders they had to complete, cherry-picking the few that stand out as most urgent. "Gordon reported a noise coming from 4's dry-tube release mechanism, Thunderbird S's bike is due general maintenance, Thunderbird 1's pilot entry platform needs oiling... and the automated kitchen module needs fixing again, too."

He sighs as he puts the to-do list down. It's going to be a long day.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The reverse-centaur apocalypse is upon us

I'm coming to DEFCON! On Aug 9, I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On Aug 10, I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

In thinking about the relationship between tech and labor, one of the most useful conceptual frameworks is "centaurs" vs "reverse-centaurs":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

A centaur is someone whose work is supercharged by automation: you are a human head atop the tireless body of a machine that lets you get more done than you could ever do on your own.

A reverse-centaur is someone who is harnessed to the machine, reduced to a mere peripheral for a cruelly tireless robotic overlord that directs you to do the work that it can't, at a robotic pace, until your body and mind are smashed.

Bosses love being centaurs. While workplace monitoring is as old as Taylorism – the "scientific management" of the previous century that saw labcoated frauds dictating the fine movements of working people in a kabuki of "efficiency" – the lockdowns saw an explosion of bossware, the digital tools that let bosses monitor employees to a degree and at a scale that far outstrips the capacity of any unassisted human being.

Armed with bossware, your boss becomes a centaur, able to monitor you down to your keystrokes, the movements of your eyes, even the ambient sound around you. It was this technology that transformed "work from home" into "live at work." But bossware doesn't just let your boss spy on you – it lets your boss control you. \

It turns you into a reverse-centaur.

"Data At Work" is a research project from Cracked Labs that dives deep into the use of surveillance and control technology in a variety of workplaces – including workers' own cars and homes:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work

It consists of a series of papers that take deep dives into different vendors' bossware products, exploring how they are advertised, how they are used, and (crucially) how they make workers feel. There are also sections on how these interact with EU labor laws (the project is underwritten by the Austrian Arbeiterkammer), with the occasional aside about how weak US labor laws are.

The latest report in the series comes from Wolfie Christl, digging into Microsoft's "Dynamics 365," a suite of mobile apps designed to exert control over "field workers" – repair technicians, security guards, cleaners, and home help for ill, elderly and disabled people:

https://crackedlabs.org/dl/CrackedLabs_Christl_MobileWork.pdf

It's…not good. Microsoft advises its customers to use its products to track workers' location every "60 to 300 seconds." Workers are given tasks broken down into subtasks, each with its own expected time to completion. Workers are expected to use the app every time they arrive at a site, begin or complete a task or subtask, or start or end a break.

For bosses, all of this turns into a dashboard that shows how each worker is performing from instant to instant, whether they are meeting time targets, and whether they are spending more time on a task than the client's billing rate will pay for. Each work order has a clock showing elapsed seconds since it was issued.

For workers, the system generates new schedules with new work orders all day long, refreshing your work schedule as frequently as twice per hour. Bosses can flag workers as available for jobs that fall outside their territories and/or working hours, and the system will assign workers to jobs that require them to work in their off hours and travel long distances to do so.

Each task and subtask has a target time based on "AI" predictions. These are classic examples of Goodhart's Law: "any metric eventually becomes a target." The average time that workers take becomes the maximum time that a worker is allowed to take. Some jobs are easy, and can be completed in less time than assigned. When this happens, the average time to do a job shrinks, and the time allotted for normal (or difficult) jobs contracts.

Bosses get stack-ranks of workers showing which workers closed the most tickets, worked the fastest, spent the least time idle between jobs, and, of course, whether the client gave them five stars. Workers know it, creating an impossible bind: to do the job well, in a friendly fashion, the worker has to take time to talk with the client, understand their needs, and do the job. Anything less will generate unfavorable reports from clients. But doing this will blow through time quotas, which produces bad reports from the bossware. Heads you lose, tails the boss wins.

Predictably, Microsoft has shoveled "AI" into every corner of this product. Bosses don't just get charts showing them which workers are "underperforming" – they also get summaries of all the narrative aspects of the workers' reports (e.g. "My client was in severe pain so I took extra time to make her comfortable before leaving"), filled with the usual hallucinations and other botshit.

No boss could exert this kind of fine-grained, soul-destroying control over any workforce, much less a workforce that is out in the field all day, without Microsoft's automation tools. Armed with Dynamics 365, a boss becomes a true centaur, capable of superhuman feats of labor abuse.

And when workers are subjected to Dynamics 365, they become true reverse-centaurs, driven by "digital whips" to work at a pace that outstrips the long-term capacity of their minds and bodies to bear it. The enthnographic parts of the report veer between chilling and heartbreaking.

Microsoft strenuously objects to this characterization, insisting that their tool (which they advise bosses to use to check on workers' location every 60-300 seconds) is not a "surveillance" tool, it's a "coordination" tool. They say that all the AI in the tool is "Responsible AI," which is doubtless a great comfort to workers.

In Microsoft's (mild) defense, they are not unique. Other reports in the series show how retail workers and hotel housekeepers are subjected to "despot on demand" services provided by Oracle:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/retail-hospitality

Call centers, are even worse. After all, most of this stuff started with call centers:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/callcenter

I've written about Arise, a predatory "work from home" company that targets Black women to pay the company to work for it (they also have to pay if they quit!). Of course, they can be fired at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/29/impunity-corrodes/#arise-ye-prisoners

There's also a report about Celonis, a giant German company no one has ever heard of, which gathers a truly nightmarish quantity of information about white-collar workers' activities, subjecting them to AI phrenology to judge their "emotional quality" as well as other metrics:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/processmining-algomanage

As Celonis shows, this stuff is coming for all of us. I've dubbed this process "the shitty technology adoption curve": the terrible things we do to prisoners, asylum seekers and people in mental institutions today gets repackaged tomorrow for students, parolees, Uber drivers and blue-collar workers. Then it works its way up the privilege gradient, until we're all being turned into reverse-centaurs under the "digital whip" of a centaur boss:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

In mediating between asshole bosses and the workers they destroy, these bossware technologies do more than automate: they also insulate. Thanks to bossware, your boss doesn't have to look you in the eye (or come within range of your fists) to check in on you every 60 seconds and tell you that you've taken 11 seconds too long on a task. I recently learned a useful term for this: an "accountability sink," as described by Dan Davies in his new book, The Unaccountability Machine, which is high on my (very long) list of books to read:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/02/despotism-on-demand/#virtual-whips

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[mock-arts]

Plans for 2025

I sort of missed the season for resolutions, but my January was a little wild! So here are my vague plans and intentions for 2025 now.

I am trying to (1) take my IRL work and (2) my health more seriously, so I am generally trying to (3) cut back on fandom obligations. Mainly wrt big bangs.

Now, I know I have said for maybe the last three years running that I’m not going to do any bangs, and then I. Uh. Ran/participated in a bunch of bangs. But this time for real! I’ll only do a bang if it’s for a specific pairing I am currently really into. I must defeat FOMO. No more entire-fandom bangs and no more well-i-know-that-media-ig bangs.

I’m going to instead try and (4) focus on doing some projects with people that I already know I like working with — I’ve got some things that have been backburnered with at least one or two people. So if I have worked with you in the past and you are in my active fandom (currently marinating in batfam stuff, but that’s subject to change) maybe we can do a little project together 👀

I am not planning on participating in FTH this year, and I’ll only be doing commissions if someone offers me truly exorbitant amounts of money out of nowhere. I am planning on splashing out on the auctions for FTH myself though, I had a really excellent experience last year with both nyoomer and pallas rose. If I can even have half such a dope experience again this year, I would be deliriously happy.

I am also running the @badsexbingo but I’ve automated the whole thing so it shouldn’t require any real activity for me. I’ll be providing some updates to my bingo sheet maker once I figure out the best way to generalize some things. It automatically generates the bingo boards and emails them to people now. I’d maybe like to (5) make some more generalized fandom automation tools? Soft maybe on that though.

So that’s my thoughts on fandom! Recap on goals:

Take work more seriously

Take health more seriously

Step back from bangs and fandom projects with deadlines

Make art in collaboration with people I already know and like working with

Maybe make more fandom widgets and tools.

Some health and work stuff beneath the cut.

Health

I spent a solid chunk of time and money in 2024 running down a diagnosis for my fatigue, and I did get one! It took several thousand dollars out of pocket and multiple specialists, but hey! I got there. I am now working on making lifestyle changes to help the medication work better. So you know, normal boring shit like diet and exercise.

Several people around me, in both my husbands and my own family, died — not young precisely, but not old either — of cancer recently. I’m talking like 40s and 50s. This has pushed me and my brother to be a little more proactive about our health and swap more info on genetic flags and our diagnoses etc.

It’s also pushed me to try and sack more cash away so I can maybe retire before I fuckin die 😬 one side of the family is not making it past 85 and one side of the family gets over 100. Really hard to plan for!

For both health and wallet reasons, going to try to eat out less so I can sack cash away, but it’s like. Fuck doc, I work hard, I can’t have one vice?

Work

Work has been nuts for several years now, and I’m anticipating it continuing to be nuts. All that crazy has been the opportunity I anticipated though, so now I have to put in an extra burst of energy to capitalize on it.

My job offers opportunities for advancement as an individual contributor, so I am not going into management, but I do have to try for an elected technical leadership title :/ some of my cohort from my lab days has gone into early-career management positions by now so I guess it’s time.

I have good name recognition at this point so I feel like I have a good shot, if not this year then next year. But it’s time to put the paperwork together and start schmoozing. It’s exciting but also I’m fucking tired!

But yep that’s it that’s the plan.

And of course, you know, hunker down and endure the next four years while helping out where I can. I am unfortunately in a very red state.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Self-driving lab transforms electronic polymers discovery

Plastic that conducts electricity might sound impossible. But there is a special class of materials known as "electronic polymers" that combines the flexibility of plastic with the functionality of metal. This type of material opens the door for breakthroughs in wearable devices, printable electronics and advanced energy storage systems. Yet, making thin films from electronic polymers has always been a difficult task. It takes a lot of fine-tuning to achieve the right balance of physical and electronic properties. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have created an innovative solution to this challenge with artificial intelligence (AI). They used an AI-driven, automated materials laboratory, a tool called Polybot, to explore processing methods and produce high-quality films. Polybot is located at the Center for Nanoscale Materials, a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne.

Read more.

[no-passaran]

I saw a post about this but it was weirdly written in a very obscuring way and the links were broken so I've looked up what it was trying to talk about and here it is:

A team at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab made a linguistic assessment tool and analyzed 7,000 characters and over 53,000 dialogues in nearly 1,000 film scripts.

Out of the 1,000 movies studied:

Men had over 37,000 dialogues; women had just over 15,000.

Women portrayed just over 2,000 characters; men portrayed almost 4,900.

7x more male writers than female writers

Almost 12x more male directors than female directors

A little over 3x more male producers than female producers

While casting directors were the only exception to this trend (there were 2x as many female casting directors as female), the casting directors’ genders seemingly had no impact on characters’ genders.

Overall, female characters regardless of race, tended to be about 5 years younger than their male counterparts.

If female writers were in the writers’ room, female character representation on screen was on average 50 percent higher.

The dialogue of Latino and mixed-race characters had more dialogue related to sexuality. African-American characters had a greater percentage of swear words in their dialogues than other races.

Overall, researchers found that female characters tend to be more positive in valence, meaning they are more positive but this tended to be correlated with using language connecting with family values. Male dialogue contained more words related to achievement, death and more swear words than the dialogue scripted for women.

In additional to the content of a dialogue, the researchers used graph theory to determine how central characters are to the plot of a movie by analyzing the ties and relationships to the other characters within the film. The researchers would then model the network and web of relationships between the characters in a similar fashion to the way one would study a transit hub. They then segmented the dialogue, putting each character as a “node” or hub. What the researchers found is that when removing the female character nodes from most movie genres, the plot and the relationships did not need to be altered significantly. The exception was when women were in horror movies when they were most likely to be portrayed as victims. Thus, to leave female characters out did not cause much of a disruption.

I think this partially helps answer the question of why do fandom spaces so often seem to forget that the female characters of their stories exist, or focus almost exclusively on MxM shipping. Consciously or unconsciously, most of the time our society writes movies where female characters do not matter.

[redlerred7]

Lessons in Potions Safety with Marisa Kirisame

Chapter 5

Summary:

Wherein Marisa brews potions for Eirin, then has a small existential crisis. As you do.

Preview:

Eirin's alchemy lab was a thing of beauty! It came fully stocked with improbably high-quality ingredients, was enchanted to be well-ventilated regardless of what was being brewed, and had countless instruments that could control for the finest measurements of weight, heat, and volume. It had everything an alchemist could ever ask for! Unfortunately, Marisa was unable to fully take advantage of the facility. Potion lessons with Patchouli aside, she had no idea how to use any of Eirin's tools. She still had to resort to eyeballing measurements, sometimes using more ingredients than was typically required by a given recipe. And with ingredients so pure, refined, and concentrated, it was no wonder why she spent the first several hours in the lab almost blowing herself up. On the plus side, she was now intimately familiar with the lab's automated safety enchantments.

Read More

Archive of Our Own | FanFiction

[driedpeanuts69]

GENIUS , PETER PARKER

pairing: peter parker x reader

summary: spidey has been struggling to get into certain buildings when on the hunt for criminals, so you cook something up for him

(inspired by the spider-man games!)

warnings: fluff, cute, sweet, i imagine it as andrew garfield but you can imagine it as any spiderman you want, also set in the mcu world (you work in a lab with stark and banner)

“What’chu up to?”

You looked over your shoulder with a small smile. You dealt with authority fine, but when the authority is a man with 7 PhD’s and another who is a world renowned billionaire, authority gets a bit overwhelming.

“I’m making something.”

Tony puffed out his cheeks with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, what?”

You spun in your chair to show off your workbench, a small bundle of red and black with eight metal legs. “Is that a spider?” Bruce asked. His glasses were pushed onto his head with a pen levelled on his ear.

“Mhm. It’s- It’s a prototype that you control through a mask, oh! Like Iron Man’s mask—“

“Thanks, kid.” He smirked.

You rolled your eyes and carried on. “Automated by electroactive polymer and equipped with plasma deconstruction and reconstruction tools.” You grinned like a madman. “There’s four eyes with infrared lasers designed to create 3D scans of the environment, which will be super helpful detecting heat signals from people—“

“Y’know, this sounds perfect for a certain friendly neighbourhood Spider-man.”

You chuckled and nodded along with Tony’s word. You thought it would be a nice surprise for Peter since you knew it was hard for him sometimes. The worry and panic of not being able to save someone in time, or even find them — it was heartbreaking.

“Why do you think it’s a spider?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce said. “Wouldn’t it be better as a… uh…”

“Mini Iron Man figurine floating about?”

You snorted as a half-assed laugh and went back to tinkering with the Spider-Bot. “No. It has jets on the belly so it can hover certain heights, and it has legs… so it sticks. Like a spider.”

“It’s very innovative,” Bruce admitted while he lingered around you. His eyes were stuck on the small spider — fully electronic and metal.

“Mhm, it’s great. Can you do Iron Man next?” Tony crossed his arms with a teasing grin on his face. “Pep would love one of these.”

“No, you’d love to have it to annoy her.” You chuckled. “I’m not putting her through that.”

“Fine, I’ll just steal the blueprints when you’re sleeping.”

“Woah, you’re gonna rob a high school student?” You faked a frown. “I can’t believe Mr. Multi-Billionaire would do that to an innocent child!”

“Oh, save it.”

Bruce was just laughing through it all as his finger dragged along the bony metal exterior. “How strong are the plasma shots?”

“Strong enough to knock someone unconscious, not strong enough to severely maim or kill. Just like Spidey’s motto.”

“Pretty sure that’s not his motto—“

“Do you ever stop?”

Bruce huffed dramatically before checking the intricate designs along the back. “Is it to match his suit?”

You shrugged. At first, you tried to, until you realised bright red spiders aren’t exactly a norm. “I’ve made it mostly black and then red… maybe it’ll pass as a black widow.”

“Don’t tell Nat about that—“

“I obviously meant the spider!” You groaned. “God, you’re infuriating.”

“You love me really.” Tony said with a grin.

“Yeah, only ‘cause you’re paying me.”

“I love you too, kid.”

You blinked hard and prayed maybe that would get him to shut up, but then the best thing ever happened and Pepper called him through FRIDAY. He rambled something about how his lady wants him, and left with a stupid goodbye (he flicked your forehead and took Bruce’s pen).

“When is Pete coming?” Bruce asked. “Don’t you guys go to the same school? You finish together—“

“He’s on the maths team, remember? You came in on us doing flashcards in here.”

“Right, when he was using his webs to cover his own eyes—“

“And then you had to make the serum to melt it. Yup, he sure learnt his lesson from that.”

Bruce chuckled before stretching his back, a low groan spilling from his lips before he pressed a hand to your shoulder. “He’ll love it, kiddo.”

“You think?”

He hummed. “Definitely. I’m sure he’ll be jealous.”

“Oh, Peters not really the jealous kind—“

“God, you two…” He drawled on before leaving the lab, the doors closing automatically once he was gone.

With Bruce and Tony leaving the lab to yourself (which was only allowed to happen after Tony removed the temporary ban after you and Peter created a cocktail molotov because you ‘didn’t believe it actually worked’) you spun back around to focus on your workbench.

You’ve only created one Spider-Bot, a carved initial on its stomach that belonged to you. It was perfect. You tested out previous prototypes and they all had one missing factor — the shape. A smaller spider that had a high boiling and melting point metal was amazing.

“Hi.”

You jumped a mile, eyes bulging in your skull as you lifted your head to stare at the new figure. Stupid Peter. “Pete!” You groaned. “You scared the shit out of me!”

His eyes widened and he dropped his skateboard on the floor before rushing over. “I’m sorry- really sorry—“ You just blinked, and he sheepishly smiled. “Sorry…”

You brushed him off with a short sweet smile and stood up from your chair. He rushed over and took your spot before placing his long fingers on your hips. He gave a slight squeeze and you sat down on his lap.

“I got you a present,” you said as you brushed away any remaining parts or tools so it at least looked nice. “Y’know how you’ve always said there’s certain places you can’t get into?”

He hummed and rested his chin on your shoulder, eyes closed as he swayed to himself. You just chuckled and took his hand into yours before laying it over your stomach.

“Well, Ive found a solution.”

He opened his eyes. “You have?” He quickly looked down at your workbench and although you couldn’t see him, you could feel his jaw stretch and a smile to take place on his lips. “Holy shit.”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s a spider.”

You rolled your eyes playfully and twisted your torso to look at him. “It’s not just a spider, Pete. Did you bring your suit?” Before he could answer, you pulled down the neckline of his shirt and saw the familiar red hue. “You wear it to maths club?”

“I’m Spider-Man.”

You giggle. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You’re pretty?”

“I don’t think my boyfriend will appreciate that,” You teased.

“Yeah, but I’m Spider-Man.”

You laughed and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before pulling back with excitement. “Okay, okay, back on track. Inspect it.”

“Inspect it? Like- like I’m a doctor?”

“Sure. Just have a look please!”

He chuckled at your impatience before moving his hands from your hips to hold the spider in his palms. It stretched alive, the metal legs strangely silent as it moved in circles around his hands.

“Is that electroactive polymer?”

You hummed excitedly.

“And are those— are those jets?”

“It can fly!”

“It has its own webshooters—and plasma! Holy… wow.” The spider stopped moving as its head twisted up to look at Peter. “What can it do?”

“Get into vents, or cracks in the walls, or even doors. Stuff like that. Basically anything a Spider-Man can’t get through.” You say. “It sends location alerts to the EMT’s, destroy walls, and scans the environment to help you find people. Or find entryways.”

“This is… you’re so cool.” He mumbled sweetly, starstruck and probably a bit excited. “How long did this take?”

“I’m not telling you, but now I have the blueprints for it, if one ever gets destroyed then give me a call and I’ll fix you up a new one in seconds.”

Peter dragged the tip of his finger along the spine of the spider before looking into your eyes. He was blushing violently, maybe because you knew him so well or maybe because you was just so fucking smart, before his large hands took you captive.

“I love you,” He mumbled before smashing his lips to yours, a sweet yet passionate kiss where his hold on your jaw tightened and his other rolled down to the side of your neck. “You’re so hot.”

“‘cause I created a Spider-Bot?”

“Because you’re so smart.” He answered back truthfully, pressing another kiss to your lips. “I would’ve just suffered… but you-“

“I didn’t want you to suffer.”

“Exactly!” He pressed one more kiss to your lips before pulling back. “I love you.”

Relishing in his happiness, you raked your fingers through his hair and smiled. “I love you too.”

[mediaevalmusereads]

Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology. By Adrienne Mayor. Princeton University Press, 2018.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: classics, mythology

Series: N/A

Summary: The fascinating untold story of how the ancients imagined robots and other forms of artificial life—and even invented real automated machines The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 years ago, long before medieval automata, and centuries before technology made self-moving devices possible, Greek mythology was exploring ideas about creating artificial life—and grappling with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, “life through craft.” In this compelling, richly illustrated book, Adrienne Mayor tells the fascinating story of how ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese myths envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices, and human enhancements—and how these visions relate to and reflect the ancient invention of real animated machines.As early as Homer, Greeks were imagining robotic servants, animated statues, and even ancient versions of Artificial Intelligence, while in Indian legend, Buddha’s precious relics were defended by robot warriors copied from Greco-Roman designs for real automata. Mythic automata appear in tales about Jason and the Argonauts, Medea, Daedalus, Prometheus, and Pandora, and many of these machines are described as being built with the same materials and methods that human artisans used to make tools and statues. And, indeed, many sophisticated animated devices were actually built in antiquity, reaching a climax with the creation of a host of automata in the ancient city of learning, Alexandria, the original Silicon Valley.A groundbreaking account of the earliest expressions of the timeless impulse to create artificial life, Gods and Robots reveals how some of today’s most advanced innovations in robotics and AI were foreshadowed in ancient myth—and how science has always been driven by imagination. This is mythology for the age of AI.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: descriptions of myths that include violence and bestiality, mention of slavery

I first heard of this book when Adrienne Mayor was a guest on the Mindscape podcast. I found her ideas and arguments to be interesting, so I figured her book would expand on the concepts she explored on the podcast.

Overall, I think this book is an accessible intro for readers interested in classical studies and the history of science. Mayor writes clearly and without a lot of specialized terminology, so even if you're new to classics, you won't find this book difficult. I think the chapter about Talos was the most convincing and the most well-done, bringing together textual analysis and art history in a way I found intellectually pleasing.

As a scholar, however, I think this book could have gone a bit further, especially with its analysis of myths and texts. Mayor summarizes most of the myths she discusses, which is all well and good for situating the reader in the texts. But what I really wanted was more specific evidence and close reading: were there any interesting language choices used to describe this automaton? Did the Greeks have a certain vocabulary for artificial beings? As it stands, it felt like Mayor's textual analysis relied on general ideas, and while fine as a starting point, I really think it could have been pushed.

I also think there's some room to apply critical frameworks such as posthumanism and transhumanism theory. Applying such theories would enhance the meanings Mayor is trying to get at, but in all fairness, this may he beyond the scope of the book. Mayor seems to be relaying a history of ideas rather than trying to get at their interpretation, so maybe her book will function well as a springboard for other scholars and students to do this work.

Lastly, I do think this book could have been framed a little better to help me as a reader see some of the through-lines. There were moments when I wasn't sure how each of Mayor's examples fit in with the overall theme of "robots" or "artificial life," so maybe a better framing device would be the theme of biotechne rather than the sci fi approach that the book currently uses. Similarly, some further delineation between what constitutes "technology" versus magic (and even just "art") would have been helpful for seeing how each individual chapter builds upon the previous.

TL;DR: Gods and Robots is a good overview of the history of artifical life and technology in the ancient Greek world. This book is perhaps most useful as a springboard for further analysis, and historians, art historians, and literary scholars will find plenty to build on.

[manekapiyumawali]

Why Sabaragamuwa University is a Great Choice.

Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (SUSL) is increasingly recognized for its technological advancement and innovation-driven environment, making it one of the leading universities in Sri Lanka in terms of technology. Here are the key reasons why SUSL stands out technologically.

Here’s why SUSL stands out as a technological powerhouse among Sri Lankan universities:

🔧1. Faculty of Technology

SUSL established a dedicated Faculty of Technology to meet the demand for tech-skilled graduates. It offers degree programs such as:

BTech in Information and Communication Technology

BTech in Engineering Technology

These programs combine practical experience in labs, workshops and real-world projects with a strong theoretical foundation.

🖥️2. Advanced IT Infrastructure

SUSL has modern computer labs, smart classrooms, and high-speed internet access across campus.

A robust Learning Management System (LMS) supports online learning and hybrid education models.

Students and lecturers use tools like Moodle, Zoom, and Google Classroom effectively.

🤖 3. Innovation & AI Research Support

SUSL promotes AI, Machine Learning, IoT, and Data Science in student research and final-year projects.

Competitions like Hackathons and Innovative Research Symposia encourage tech-driven solutions.

Students develop apps, smart systems, and automation tools (e.g., Ceylon Power Tracker project).

🌐 4. Industry Collaboration and Internships

SUSL connects students with the tech industry through:

Internships at leading tech firms

Workshops led by industry experts

Collaborative R&D projects with government and private sector entities

These connections help students gain hands-on experience in areas such as software engineering, networking, and data analytics that make them highly employable after graduation.

💡 5. Smart Campus Initiatives

SUSL is evolving into a Smart University, introducing systems that streamline academic life:

Digital student portals

Online registration and results systems

E-library and remote resource access

Campus Wi-Fi for academic use

These initiatives improve the student experience and create an efficient, technology-enabled environment.

🎓 6. Research in Emerging Technologies

The university is involved in pioneering research across emerging technological fields, including:

Agricultural tech (AgriTech)

Environmental monitoring using sensors

Renewable energy systems

Students and faculty publish research in international journals and participate in global tech events.

🏆 7. Recognition in National Competitions

SUSL students often reach fina rounds or win national competitions in coding, robotics, AI, and IoT innovation.

Faculty members are invited as tech advisors and conference speakers, reinforcing the university's expertise.

Sabaragamuwa University is actively shaping the future not only with technology, but by integrating technology into education, research and operations. This makes it a technological leader among Sri Lankan Universities. Visit the official university site here: Home | SUSL