John L. Taylor @johnnylogic@qoto.org
- Home
- Portland, OR
- Website
- http://www.johnnylogic.org/
Data scientist, fraud researcher, bibliophile, humanist.
Joined Nov 2022
John L. Taylor
boosted
Tax Preparers Sell You Out to Facebook
Major tax filing services such as H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer have been quietly transmitting sensitive financial information to Facebook when Americans file their taxes online, The Markup has learned. #Facebook #DataThieves #SoldOutAmerica - https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing
John L. Taylor
boosted
Here is a comparison between JWST’s near-infrared (left) and mid-infrared views (right).
In the image taken with JWST’s Mid-infrared Instrument (MIRI), the hot stars fade, and the cooler gas and dust glow. We can see deeper into the nebula, where, points of light indicate embedded still-forming protostars. Soot-like hydrocarbon dust glows, shown here in blue and purple. (6/)
This [Behind the Code](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn5sTGew1WGD2Tnspn9vhpLGf-kqDRbYy) series examines hit detection, AI, glitches, and many more topics in the context of classic NES game code. It looks at The Legend of Zelda, Megaman, Contra, SuperMario Brothers, and many others.
It is perfect nerd bait for me-- perhaps some of you are similarly unusual and will enjoy it.
"[A] fresh look at a 3700-year-old clay tablet suggests that Babylonian mathematicians not only developed the first trig table, beating the Greeks to the punch by more than 1000 years, but that they also figured out an entirely new way to look at the subject. However, other experts on the clay tablet, known as Plimpton 322 (P322), say the new work is speculative at best." ([Source](https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-babylonian-tablet-may-contain-first-evidence-trigonometry) )
Not recent, but interesting.
John L. Taylor
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#FTX and other #crypto companies gave millions of dollars to members of Congress.
Those same members of Congress attempted to block an SEC inquiry into FTX and other crypto companies.
We have legalized bribery in this country.
https://prospect.org/power/congressmembers-tried-to-stop-secs-inquiry-into-ftx/
John L. Taylor
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Billionaires funded 15% of the midterm elections. They represent 0.0002% of the population. That's a problem. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/billionaires-provided-15-percent-funding-midterms
John L. Taylor
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"What is it about the nature of weak men who pretend to be strong — that they need to be led by other weak men who feign the same?"
Piper Anne Twain
#Quotes #EmotionalIntelligence #WeakMen #Fascism
John L. Taylor
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“It’s not building a new internet. It’s not an asset uncorrelated with the market. It’s not a hedge against inflation. It is a vehicle for pure, naked speculation detached from anything in the economy.”
https://www.ft.com/content/028e0109-6e87-42ed-8480-996cf645ce04
John L. Taylor
boosted
I've seen a lot of white folks suggest new Black users change instances if they have a bad experience on their first Mastodon server.
Why should that be the default expectation? I understand that bad actors will always be there to create accounts and instances to harass folks.
It is incumbent on us, as anti-racist white folks, to find ways to prevent these bad actors from making our spaces unwelcoming to new Black users. It's a failure of imagination otherwise.
John L. Taylor
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Eugenics- a cautionary tale of how science can be misused- and in some ways is still influencing thought today. Gripping and urgent account from Adam Rutherford on this BBC radio4 program:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fd36
Maddow has produced a [remarkable eight-part series](https://rachel-maddow-presents-ultra.simplecast.com/episodes) on the history of authoritarian insurrectionists in 1930s and 40s America. It is a story of Christian nationalism, antisemitism, the America First movement, anti-democratic media figures, politicians sympathetic to authoritarian regimes, calls to armed insurrection, and violence.
Any similarities to recent events are entirely deliberate.
#Antisemitism, #Authoritarianism, #ChristianNationalism, #Fascism, #History, #Podcast
John L. Taylor
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@NicoleCRust @DrYohanJohn @dlevenstein I was rereading Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier (2011) on heuristics (https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_2099042/component/file_2099041/content) and there is this interesting claim that, in this case, the idealizations of classical decision theory actually impede our understanding of the operative causal processes; occluding what is going on, instead of clarifying or enhancing the fundamental processes.
John L. Taylor
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The many branches of the #fediverse (#Mastodon instances are but one) ~ via https://axbom.com/fediverse/ ~ #SocialMedia #community
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmFOmprTt0) is a classic demonstration of learned helplessness.
Learned helplessness is arguably a good heuristic for motivational economy-- basically, don't waste effort on avoiding the inevitable. Unfortunately, it can lead to patterns of self-fulfilling powerlessness, and worse learned helplessness can be deliberately engendered as a means of control. Beware of the stories you tell yourself (and especially others tell you!) about what you can and cannot accomplish, individually and collectively.
John L. Taylor
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The hardest problem in computer science is to make a social network without nazis
@ohuu Personally, I find Elsevier (for example) much more objectionable than sci-hub. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science
@ohuu This is a complicated question. It depends on the level of risk you are willing to take on, what measures you use, and your own perspective on the service and its ethics. Here is a thread exploring a bit of it: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/87688/what-are-the-consequences-of-using-sci-hub
@ohuu I sympathize! I suspect that you already use it, but in case you don't https://sci-hub.se/ is an essential resource for the academically unaffiliated.
John L. Taylor
boosted
Disturbed by reports of Black Mastodon users—Black women in particular—having negative experiences on this app, including being randomly banned for discussions of racism. Some of these users will not come back. All will share their experiences. The answer is not to condescendingly lecture them on “how the fediverse works,” as if their experiences are inevitable, nor to swear to do better next time. (There may not be one.) It’s to do better now lest the reputation of this app be cemented.
- Home
- Portland, OR
- Website
- http://www.johnnylogic.org/
Data scientist, fraud researcher, bibliophile, humanist.
Joined Nov 2022
