ML2 @mathlover@qoto.org

Mathematician John Conway was born #OTD in 1937. He made broad and profound contributions across all of mathematics, but he is maybe best known by the general public for his "game of life" cellular automaton. Conway passed away in 2020, from COVID-19.

Pay attention to who they’re giving a platform to over at Fox News. Listen to their hateful, dehumanizing rhetoric. Then speak out against it forcefully.

There’s an absolutely astonishing story brewing in the medieval manuscripts world of a Potemkin Village scholarly institute built out of plagiarism and stock photos. I can scarcely do it justice except to link to Peter Kidd’s thorough deconstruction of #receptio #receptiogate

Part 1: https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-receptio-rossi-affair-part-i-staff.html

Part 2: https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-receptio-rossi-affair-part-ii.html

Part 3: https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-receptio-rossi-affair-iii-my.html

Part 4: https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-receptio-rossi-affair-iv-my.html

Part 5: https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-receptio-rossi-affair-part-v.html

Bill Watterson's 1990 Kenyon College commencement address. Impossible to excerpt but I tried:

"I've wanted to be a cartoonist since I was old enough to read cartoons, and I never really thought about cartoons as being a business. It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I'd be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions."

Read it all
https://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html

In the richest nation on earth, a man died in the freezing cold Mississippi woods on Christmas Day while trying to walk home to his family.

They had been unable to wire money to him or help him get a bus ticket because he didn’t have a current ID.
https://www.sunherald.com/news/weather-news/article270464302.html

Short rant.

Southwest Air has cancelled ~70% of its flights in an epic meltdown this holiday season.

Remember, Southwest took $3.7B in federal aid from 2020-21.

It’s CEO got a pay raise to a $9.1M package in 2022.

Yet Southwest employees are working 16 hour shifts & threatened w/termination if they refuse overtime or call in sick.

Socialism for the wealthy. Capitalism for workers.

Stop trusting billionaires. Start holding them accountable. And start protecting workers.

End Rant.

Mastodon is our opportunity to create the community and forge the connections that we want - and, indeed - need.

We don't need to get caught up in the outrage, hatred, bitterness, and bigotry being posted elsewhere.

We have the power to curate, to consider, to control what we see and respond to on this platform.

So, take that power - use it - create a better social experience for yourself today. Follow awesome people, start great conversations, enjoy this.

It's down to us.

#mastodon

Notified Experian on Dec. 23 that their site was allowing anyone to see the credit report for, well, basically anyone, completely bypassing their lame 4-5 multiple guess questions and other security.

Or even in cases (like mine) where trying to get your credit report generates an error saying you have 3 other options for getting your free report from them (calling, mailing, or chat w/ rep). The site said Experian didn't have enough info to validate my identity, but when I changed the url slightly, it showed me my entire report. Glad I checked, too, because the info in there is so completely wrong I don't even know where to start.

So it's Dec. 27, and I still haven't heard anything from Experian.

It's bad enough that we can't stop companies like from making $2B a quarter collecting and selling our info, but this has to stop. Experian has show this year especially that it gives exactly zero fscks about securing access to the data that drives its entire business.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/08/class-action-targets-experian-over-account-security/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/07/experian-you-have-some-explaining-to-do/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/04/experian-api-exposed-credit-scores-of-most-americans/

All over the country, there are emergency responders and workers actually, actively taking care of life.

To all the emergency responders, snow plow drivers, utility workers, medical professionals, service workers, and those like the people who showed up here to take care of freezing, mistreated migrants- to all people that had to brave the elements to the benefit of others, thank you. The public owes you debt of gratitude.

On the other hand, scorn should be heaped upon Greg Abbott. Oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook: scapegoat and demonize a racial group. Give your angry supporters--for whom you feel nothing but contempt anyway, by the way--someone to feel superior to. Frees you from the need to actually do anything for them, doesn't it?

It's ugly and wrong.

Migrants from Texas dropped off outside VP Harris' home on freezing Christmas Eve-
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/migrants-texas-harris-house-christmas-eve-rcna63204

Some things that could trigger a 5MM to 10MM wave:

* Massive infra failure on Twitter causes prolonged outage (24hrs+)

* Taylor Swift creates a Mastodon account, and deactivates her Twitter, says follow me on Masto

* Increasing Alt-right deranged behavior by CEO

If this happens, we'd want as many of the new wave to land on well moderated instances as possible. This wave will likely be much less tolerant of racist abuse than us stubborn pioneers.

In all of the news that poured out of the Capitol last week, a critical win for Mother Nature went mostly overlooked.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/bidens-latest-climate-win-usps-get-fleet-electric-trucks-rcna63320?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma