#psa #science #safety #chemistry

EDIT: DO NOT LICK THINGS BASED ON THIS PICTURE

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOT RADIUM FOR EXAMPLE

"We now have a weaponized law enforcement in the United States. This is the time to download secure #encryption and start paying attention to #privacy, because law enforcement is going to Go After Their Enemies... and if they knew about me, I'd probably be one of 'em!"

- #Security Now podcast

https://pca.st/episode/46b66f0a-fe6b-4516-9b40-16e657615b48?t=1979.0

TIL: Use '"NNNN" in documentation to refer to an arbitrary 4-digit number. Don't use "XXXX", because an #LLM may assume it's offensive content (?!) and refuse to deal with that whole chunk of information as a result.

*#&^ng hilarious, IMO

Both the populist toadie and the ostensible intellectual are deluded.
What a failure of education.
Cry, the beloved country

#ElonMusk #nyt
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/opinion/steve-bannon-on-broligarchs-vs-populism.html

#deepseek take: it's #opensource and to my inexpert eye reasonably #openscience as well.

Which means, this pretty much *exclusively* affects #openai

They are the ones charging $200/mo for full access to #o1 (and early access to o3)

#google #microsoft #oracle #NVIDIA etc will still be running their massive #AI #datacenters ; it just got a lot cheaper for anyone to leverage a highly capable -- maybe even economically useful -- reasoning #LLM on those #GPUs

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.12948

True fact: I fanboy over brilliant thinkers the way some people do over sports figures or rock stars.

David Krakauer is my LeBron, and my Bowie, rolled into one.

It's for consistently fascinating guests like this that I am a proud Patreon of Paul's podcast. I am going to listen to this over... and over...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=__V89ZR3vUE

#complexity #neuroscience

In his book How #Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018), Jason Stanley defined fascism thusly:

Cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation ... The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors.

As a member of the reality-based community, I am continually *appalled* at the faith-based community.

I *strongly* oppose any mission "to renew a consensus of America as a nation under God"

Keep your childish delusions personal; don't force them on us adults.

#Trump #TrumpCabinet #FFRF #freedom #religion

https://ffrf.quorum.us/campaign/105348/

This article throws me into moral dilemma. What was my responsibility in this? What are the root causes?

What can we do *now* to address them?

If you have any ideas at all, I'd love to hear them

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/05/us/politics/january-6-capitol-riot-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.m04.TDAy.igPUaWEKa9Nd&smid=url-share

I've been running #tor and #monero nodes for years, since even before the first #Trump administration.

Now #TulsiGabbard may be Director of National Intelligence.

Time to build that #Qubes PC.

#privacy #USA

THE NEW YARD SIGNS ARE HERE!
THE NEW YARD SIGNS ARE HERE!!

#Harris #walz #democracy #dadjokes

Shopping for political yard signs. I will only have tactful inclusive messages on my yard.

But I have to give the #Harris team credit, their merch has some seriously glorious shade to throw

"Masked Face Recognition" is maturing fast, with standardized datasets and regular claims of 90%+ accuracy for images of people wearing big glasses, surgical masks, N95, or niqab(!)

So, my amateur research into counter #surveillance continues.

And yes, I *am* considering balaclavas and burqas as reasonable countermeasures. I already mask; I won't trade security for vanity.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10661046

Remember the news that Juggalo facepaint confused #AI facial recognition?

As you might imagine, modeling via a 3D face map (akin to Apple's Face-ID) solves that problem.

https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JEI.31.1.013005

ICYMI: #Telegram is *not* #encrypted in any meaningful sense. Which means with Pavel in French custody, NATO is almost certainly evesdropping on the Russian military as it communicates “securely”

Remember: a #billionaire means your network almost certainly is not primarily focused of technology, but rather profitability

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram-is-not-really-an-encrypted-messaging-app/

Honest question for folks in #Hawaii -- did #TulsiGabbard give you weird creepy vibes back when she was elected to #Congress?

I being in #NH talked to her during her POTUS run. She seemed rational and empathetic. I never would have guessed her reinvention as a Joe Rogan/Tucker Carlson wannabe, but here we are.

So. I'm deeply curious. Folks who were her constituents... Did you see this coming long ago? If so, what were the signs? Or were you, like me, blindsided?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgm7n0xgnzzo

With #MachineLearning monitoring your IP address and #socialmedia, #Banking and #tech companies can help #lawenforcement prevent financial #crime.

Well-intentioned people with noble goals can forget that human dignity *requires* a degree of personal #privacy -- especially in our digital era.

Whether or not this particular initiative succeeds, the basic #surveillance system is being built.

This is why I support projects like #Monero and #Tor

https://db.wolfsberg-group.org/assets/e3d83d2f-fad9-46d2-b5a9-3cf4e932f53f/Wolfsberg%20Group%20Statement%20on%20Effective%20Monitoring%20for%20Suspicious%20Activity.pdf

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07624-5

*These* are 10 commandments we need posted in public spaces

#tennessee #Oklahoma

https://invidious.drgns.space/watch?v=vfPJ2ukzMd0

TIL browsing Wikipedia:

"Echoes (1971) features a prominent instrumental riff that is identical to the main theme in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera."

IMO, it's a lot more powerful when (a) played on electric guitars, and (b) meant to convey the billion-year struggle of Life as it "climbs towards the light"

#pinkfloyd

https://invidious.drgns.space/watch?v=BW9Kts3fo98