@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

UncivilServant

@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com

Healthcare Policy Analyst
Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services

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lauren, to random
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

Alito says he told his wife to take down problematic flag but she said no and he couldn't do anything about it. Seriously, that's what he says.

UncivilServant,
@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

@lauren Y'know, I had a disturbing thought: what if he's telling the truth (as far as he knows it)? I know they're lying, but just take that excuse to its logical conclusion of the Alito and Thomas wives as Esther's evil twin sisters. And not just them, but that broader movement.

It's not as dumb as it seems at first glance: these men are not intellectual giants. It's not an implausible conspiracy theory...but yeah, the most obvious explanation is that they are just lying.

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

For those who aren’t aware, Microsoft have decided to bake essentially an infostealer into base Windows OS and enable by default.

From the Microsoft FAQ: “Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers."

Info is stored locally - but rather than something like Redline stealing your local browser password vault, now they can just steal the last 3 months of everything you’ve typed and viewed in one database.

video/mp4

UncivilServant,
@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

@GossiTheDog Most government agencies have policies and procedures for destroying/disposing of sensitive documents. I'm not even talking about classified natsec stuff, just basic things like PHI at health agencies, or the PII stored by tax, driving, and municipal utility agencies.

Improper disposal of those documents can be every bit as serious as improper disclosure of classified documents. Either Microsoft has sat down with attorneys and spent months going over liability issues, or...

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

Life would be easier for many scientists if the general public would get past the stereotype that all science is just about "surprise" and novelty and completely unknown things and that studies don't matter if they match your lived experience 😭 there is massive need to document well known things into the scientific record and establish specific evidence examples for them in ways that will be legible and useful for policy, public action, etc....!

Media really fuels this misconception

UncivilServant,
@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

@grimalkina Even better is when well-meaning people take a relatively common term in your field, conflate it with an older, incorrect term and highlight that the original, incorrect idea came from some old bigot.

Thus guaranteeing that a significant number of people may ignore any discussion of common goods market failures because "everyone knows that's racist pseudoscience".

And there goes the prime rationale for the EPA. I wish it was a deliberate plot, I'd actually be impressed.

UncivilServant, to random
@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

Dear Google,

When I search, I am not looking for The Answer. I am looking for sources. A search that generates only answers will be useless personally, and worse than useless professionally for me.

What I would really like is an internet search engine that works. Google did that once. Then they focused on other things and used it for ad revenue and it became the new Craigslist.

It would sure be nice if Google would reinvent an actual internet search engine.

kissane, to random
@kissane@mas.to avatar

I'm just going to leave this here and get back to work

https://www.piratewires.com/p/interview-with-jack-dorsey-mike-solana

UncivilServant,
@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

@kissane Not gonna lie, I couldn't even make it through that italicized introduction part at first. On the other hand, it was sufficiently...itself, to be clear this wasn't something you were endorsing.

These are not serious people. They come across as either overgrown teenagers cosplaying as serious people...or as I fear more likely, unserious people desperately trying to recapture their misspent youth.

It's like the capital equivalent of a boy band with a one-hit wonder.

UncivilServant, to random
@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

I am Jewish, and I have relatives by marriage, who I haven't met, who are Palestinian, including some who may or may not still be living in Gaza. My views on this conflict are complicated.

I have a Poli Sci degree from Washington College, founded in 1782 with George's personal blessing. I believe that peacefully assembling to petition any authority is a right and an obligation of every citizen.

Slogans are easy. Governing is hard.

UncivilServant, to random
@UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

If you are a college administrator, and you cannot handle student protests during the last few weeks of classes before summer break, it's time to find a new job.

Seriously, that's not a failure, it's a damned moral collapse, a complete abdication of all responsibility to your students.

It's especially sad to see it happen at Columbia, which used to have a good journalism school. It won't after this, that's what happens when you choose the governor over your students.

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @GossiTheDog If Microsoft could take a project like Skyblivion (Oblivion remade in the Skyrim engine), but obviously fast-forward a generation or so of advances...

    I loved Skyrim's graphics and character creation (no classes!), but Oblivion had so much better world-settings, so much more diversity of biomes and areas. It definitely deserves a full rebuild, but I suspect that sort of project has real costs beyond fun and volunteering.

    Teri_Kanefield, to random
    @Teri_Kanefield@mastodon.social avatar

    Today is an important anniversary.

    73 years ago, on April 23, 1951, in Farmville, VA, Barbara Johns led a walkout of her segregated high school to protest the unfair and deplorable conditions of her school.

    What?! You don’t know who Barbara Johns was?

    She led her walkout more than 4 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, and before MLK, Jr. embraced nonviolence as the way to equality.

    1/

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @Teri_Kanefield I strongly suspect that there would be a market for a book about a drive through rural Virginia digging history out of attics.

    e_urq, to trans
    @e_urq@journa.host avatar

    I am not fond of David Brooks, but I certainly understand why he finds the Cass Report so compelling.

    For cisgender people who have no pre-existing knowledge, it's really a perfect document. It is completely decorous while implying that there are too many trans people and efforts should be made to limit their numbers.

    https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/david-brooks-hilary-cass-empathy-transgender

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @e_urq While this may not be a medically professional thing to say, I've always gotten the impression that David Brooks is what happens to intellectuals who go through college without trying cannabis even once.

    He comes across as someone who genuinely believes that his is the one universal human experience. And this is why taking his advice on almost any subject other than "where do I take a pedantic NYT columnist to lunch" is a bad idea.

    flexghost, to random
    @flexghost@mastodon.social avatar

    Let’s chat

    Do you feel you have less interest posting about politics / current events lately?

    Why?

    Do you notice the same responses over and over again?

    Do you feel headlines and events seem to go nowhere or seem to repeat?

    Do you think people are more polarized or less polarized?

    Are people beholden to their sides’ ideology— the kind of people where if you looked at their profile you would know exactly what they think on most issues without nuance?

    I just wanna hear where you’re at…

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @flexghost FWIW, it's normal to feel overwhelmed and want to disconnect from politics. Seriously.

    Now, it gets a bit more complicated if you were dumb enough to get a big fancy (expensive) degree in the subject, and then go on to convince one of the few insular guilds still remaining that you are a government whisperer...

    But even then, it is perfectly normal to feel the need to disengage from politics from time to time.

    Alon, to random
    @Alon@mastodon.social avatar
    1. I've seen Israeli journalists link to this FDD analysis to argue that the Palestinian death toll numbers reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health are wrong and one third of the reported dead are in fact alive. This line is stupid, and Gaza MoH numbers should be considered reliable. Let me explain why, in the hope that the people arguing over this arrive at some kind of convergence in basic facts. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/04/09/hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry-admits-to-flaws-in-casualty-data/
    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @Alon At a more basic level, the population density and small geographic space would also have the effect of more accurate reporting on injured and dead. This isn't like a rural disaster where it takes time to track down the missing and the dead and for the injured to get help. In an urban area I'd expect triage nurses, morgues, and community officials to provide decent rough estimates.

    I assume almost everyone alive in Gaza is trying to get food and shelter. That means contacts and names.

    GossiTheDog, to random
    @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @GossiTheDog When he was asking why the US wasn't being more proactive and how a small team could do so much, I thought of whoever had that brilliant idea in Serbia, in 1914, about how much a small team could accomplish if they could just get them to Sarajevo...

    (if I remember correctly, the guy went by the nom-de-guerre "Apis", so yeah the whole "screwing the world from your living room with a bad nickname" is over a century old)

    mattblaze, to random
    @mattblaze@federate.social avatar

    An interesting thing about the XZ sabotage is that, while it was very cleverly obfuscated (congratulations to Andres Freund for finding it!), once found, it is very clear that it's a deliberate backdoor. It can't be explained away as an ordinary bug that introduced a vulnerability.

    Says something about the tradeoff space the attacker was working in.

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @mattblaze You're one of the first I've seen to analyze this in terms of the adversary's constraints. I am not a computer scientist, but in terms of constraints, resources, and targeting, this doesn't "feel" like a state actor.

    So, this is highly targeted, and the social engineering tactics seemed personal. You're not getting that from a committee. And it was a long game, which would have meant supervisors coming and going, changes in priority, etc in government.

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @mattblaze Ah, is that part of why intelligence types complain that the rest of the government keeps giving them side-eye?

    Because yeah, that sort of unprofessional obsession...huh, Le Carré really wasn't exaggerating if that's how they act.

    mekkaokereke, (edited ) to random
    @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

    As we hear reports that it will take 10 years (🤯) to replace the 1.6 mile Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, remember that China built the Danyang-Kunshan bridge and Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in 4 years each.

    Danyang-Kunshan Bridge is 102 miles long, and 100 ft above the water.

    Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is 16 miles and 623 ft tall, earthquake and typhoon proof, and can withstand a direct strike from a 300,000 ton cargo ship. That last point is unfortunately topical.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U7iQqogVmr8

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @hazelweakly @mekkaokereke I don't consider it racist to point out that it's difficult to believe official info from the PRC, because it is illegal to contradict the official party line of the CCP in China.

    And yes, American whistleblowers face retaliation as well, but the American government doesn't execute whistleblowers. The Chinese government does. So if you're a Chinese engineer and you know a bridge isn't built to spec, you stay silent and you live, or you speak up and die.

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @Alon @mekkaokereke And Baltimore has tunnels under their harbor as well. I've been through them plenty of times, it's a major part of the drive along the NW corridor between DC and Philly/NYC.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_McHenry_Tunnel

    It's kinda cool some times when your ears pop in the middle of the tunnel.

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @McBeth @hazelweakly @mekkaokereke I work for a state government. I have walked into our policy director's office and told her I was concerned about whether we were in compliance with certain federal laws...actually on multiple occasions, now that I think of it.

    I regularly drink tea on my balcony without any worries.

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @mekkaokereke @McBeth @hazelweakly My point was that one reason to distrust some of China's rapid infrastructure development is because of their government. I agree with you that governments are central to infrastructure development, our fed and state governments have dropped the ball on that for at least 50 years, no argument.

    But when a Chinese company builds a bridge rapidly, is it innovation, or corruption and pressure? Worse, we don't know, because the PRC is opaque rather than dishonest

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @mekkaokereke @McBeth @hazelweakly And I want to emphasize that last part. The Chinese government doesn't always lie. But they reflexively cover up until they have orders from above with an official story. So it's not fair to assume that everything from China is a lie, that's just as bad as taking the CCP's word, or any government's word.

    I don't trust the American or Chinese governments. The US fed and most state governments are relatively transparent, is a difference.

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @mekkaokereke @McBeth @hazelweakly So it's not even just "is this bridge safe" but a more big-picture "do they have the appropriate regulatory structures in place" and "what is the oversight of the building and maintenance process".

    I'm just saying, if someone promises to build it faster, better, and cheaper, it's worth asking how and why. I'm sure we can do better than we are, but I'm reluctant to follow a path laid down by a government that is fundamentally inefficient, corrupt, and evil.

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @mekkaokereke @McBeth @hazelweakly I would love it if we could construct megaprojects with the scale and organization of Japanese industry, the tech infrastructure from South Korea, and the transportation infrastructure of the EU.

    Those are countries worth learning from (maybe not pre-80s Korea). I'm not saying we can't do better.

    As for Sinophobia, dunno. It's been 20 years since I studied foreign policy or since I've had friends living in China, I could be wrong about one-party states.

    UncivilServant, to random
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    To those upset about the delays of justice imposed by the rule of law, resulting in various court decisions that seem to favor unsavory people, I would counter:

    If you tear down every law to get at the devil, then when the devil turns round on you, where will you hide, the laws all being flat?

    The purpose of due process is not the outcome. Due process is a right, a purpose unto itself.

    mekkaokereke, to random
    @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

    Congratulations to all James Madison University students! For unwittingly and unwillingly becoming investors in a professional sports franchise!🤡

    James Madison University charges students a non-optional $5,662 "student fee" every year. $2,362 of that student fee goes to funding athletics.🤯

    So if you're a JMU student, don't tell me you're "not that into sports." I don't believe you. Because your wallet is!

    But congratulations to JMU sports investors! It's working!

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pofh1lKI4rU

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @mekkaokereke 20...damn, no, 25 years ago when I was applying to colleges, I seem to remember annual in-state tuition at JMU was in the $5,000-$10,000 range in total.

    Of course, around that same time we elected a Republican governor who eliminated a major car tax, and while the tax was unpopular, he neglected to explain to voters how it would be financed. It took another decade before a Republican was elected governor again once suburban parents saw the tuition hikes.

    UncivilServant,
    @UncivilServant@med-mastodon.com avatar

    @ajsadauskas @mekkaokereke Oddly enough, MLB actually does this. I'm not entirely sure why, although I suspect it has to do with less wear-and-tear, they're not using players up and spitting them out.

    But seriously, the minor league farm systems, while they also exploit cheap labor, are at least upfront about their role, which is to pay guys $10,000/year and the promise of a shot at the big leagues for maybe 0.1% of them. The rest are basically glorified roadies.

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