Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org
Retired Analytical Chemist
League of Women Voters -voting methods, election security
Board Member Colorado Citizens for Science
Joined Oct 2022
Gaythia Weis
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Gaythia Weis
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A Catholic priest once knocked my father across the room for speaking Lakota in “class.” Dad went on to serve his country with honor and distinction in the U.S. Air Force. However, he could never ever escape or outrun his post-traumatic boarding school demons. I remember our father, in the stillness of the predawn darkness — weeping uncontrollably in his sleep.
This Memorial Day I honor my father, Staff Sergeant Melvin Martin, for his heroic service to a country that tried to forcibly erase his cultural heritage and strip him of his Indigenous identity.
Love you, miss you dad,
Your son,
John
Gaythia Weis
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🏳️🌈🖖🏽
I’m grateful that we have a president who honors and pays tribute to our fallen heroes, and doesn’t consider them “losers” and “suckers.”
Gaythia Weis
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Within my own lifetime, the last 50 years, nearly 80% of the CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, and close to 60 percent of all GHG emissions have been released.
There's been a near 70% decline in populations of existing wildlife species; and across the 8 million animal and plant species on earth, the human-induced extinction rate is now estimated at tens to hundreds of times greater than natural rates.
#BiodiversityDay reminds us that the profound crises we confront are just different sides of the same coin, and that our future is truly in our hands. The planet doesn't need us: we are the ones who rely on it for all the air we breathe, the water we drink, the resources we need. That's why our choices matter more today than ever: the path to a better future lies through these crises.
Read my essay here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/one-planet-two-crises-tackling-climate-change-and-biodiversity-in-the-fight-for-our-future/
Gaythia Weis
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Yesterday in 1887, a group of horse thieves killed over 30 Chinese gold miners in Hells Canyon in far eastern #Oregon.
Gaythia Weis
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Gaythia Weis
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Business leaders: We can't find enough workers!
Workers: You could pay more.
Business: Nope.
Workers: Better benefits?
Business: No.
Workers: More flexible hours?
Business: No way.
Workers: Treat your current employees better to build your employer brand?
Business: Never.
Workers: Well, what's left?!
Business: Child labor!
https://apnews.com/article/iowa-governor-child-labor-laws-e8cb29e2a45b956489c4a192b7ddeba5
“I’m not an expert,” she said. “I’m not a reader. I’m not a book person...." This sure seems to be true. The book is only 29 pages long and has maybe 10 or so lines per page. Hard to imagine managing to find the lines to object to without just reading all of it. Following someone else's instructions?
Florida mom who challenged Amanda Gorman poem and other books says she only read parts of the material https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/05/28/daily-salinas-amanda-gorman-poem/70265234007/
Gaythia Weis
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When my down-south cousin said "I seen them army ants all the time" I assumed that he didn't know what he was talking about. To me "army ants" were tropical exotic creatures. Need to catch a plane to see army ants. Right?
Well? I was wrong. Many species of army ants are from North America, mostly Neivamyrmex-- they do all the army ant things: make bivouac, raid en mass, be blind, have males like flying sausages (or cocktail pickles), they even run around carrying their brood!
"House Republicans have now used the debt limit twice to create a hostage-like situation that brings the nation close to an unthinkable default. " "The debt limit itself needs to be scrapped. " https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/28/debt-limit-deal-future/
Gaythia Weis
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"The problem with the Supreme Court is that they're in a fact-free zone as well as an ethics-free zone." https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/whitehouse-supreme-court-fact-free-ethics-free-zone-1234743537/
Gaythia Weis
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6 (!) years ago, @timnitGebru put forward a profound idea for AI research: document your training data. To say she was treated like shit would be putting it lightly. If she had been respected like her male peers were, imagine what a different path AI could have taken.
Gaythia Weis
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Look closely and you’ll see this parasitic Anastatus wasp’s ovipositor penetrating one of the stink bug eggs.
Gaythia Weis
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@boby_biq @StillIRise1963
My elderly father and I are caring for my elderly mother, who has dementia. She cannot go to the bathroom by herself, and we are not women.
Lack of gender neutral bathrooms can be a great hindrance to us.
Gaythia Weis
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Colorado Becomes the First State to Limit Court Use of Family Reunification Camps
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A new bill restricts the use of reunification programs and requires domestic violence training for experts in custody cases. Lawmakers credit ProPublica’s reporting for exposing the need for reforms in the family court system.
#Colorado #Custody #Parents #Divorce #Kids #Courts Families #DomesticViolence #Reunification #FamilyCourt
Gaythia Weis
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On Monday, I wrote an essay about climate and biodiversity for Scientific American. I tracked proportional engagement, calculated as (likes + shares + comments)/followers, over six social media platforms.
The winner? MASTODON, by a landslide.
Second place? INSTAGRAM. It's harder to share posts on IG, but lot of people like things there!
The loser? FACEBOOK, also by a landslide. On Facebook, I've been shadow-banned since August 2018 when they listed clean energy and climate as "socially sensitive topics" so my page there stopped growing 6 years ago and now only about 1% of my followers there ever see my posts. It's actually too bad, because that's the platform where I reach the most conservative audiences through their connections to friends and family. So even though it's dead last, I still persist.
Gaythia Weis
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In absolute terms, both Mastodon and Instagram punch above their weight. Twitter and LI are just below. And FB is, no surprise, extremely low.
Gaythia Weis
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On formiculture.com one of the other antkeepers asked chat GPT to list all of the species in Tapinoma.
A simple task. Of course, chat GPT has made up species of ants that simply do not exist.
This is the key mis-match in expectations vs. what the software really does.
It's not about "knowing" things, it's about *seeming* like you know things. Can you spot the fakes on the list? (unless you are a HUGE ant nerd of course you can't! The list looks fine.)
Gaythia Weis
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Oh hey! I just had my first social media post to be taken down from any platform ever, on LinkedIn. Yay! My post about the flabbergasting amounts of racism in "AI" violated their "professional" community guideline. Indeed. Its quite professional to be as racist as possible, but not professional to call it out. Totally makes sense.
Retired Analytical Chemist
League of Women Voters -voting methods, election security
Board Member Colorado Citizens for Science
Joined Oct 2022
