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Posts by Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸

Its not particularly incoherent to think that there should be a social safety net but state intervention in the economy is nevertheless usually hamfisted and should be minimal. There is even a thinktank for this: @niskanencenter.bsky.social

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The US is off the regressions line: an extremely high income country where residents think politics need big changes www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

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Absolutely incredible.

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone.

Watch with sound on.

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Episode 10: Battle of Quiberon Bay: France’s Do... by The Untitled History Podcast In 1759 France and Britain were locked in the Seven Years War. It was a war of global proportions. In Europe, Russia, India, and the American colonies the two countries fought to establish who was the...

In 1759, a French invasion fleet bound for the UK prepared to shelter from a huge winter storm in the Bay of Biscay.

Riding into attack on the edge of that storm was a Royal Navy fleet under Admiral Hawke.

On the pod, @drachinifel.bsky.social look at a gloriously batshit naval battle we both love.

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A tweet from Pope Leo XIV that reads: “When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.”

A tweet from Pope Leo XIV that reads: “When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.”

Apparently the Pope has read Baudrillard.

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People from the liberal intelligentsia often complain that computer nerds don’t understand ethics, but the problem is exactly the opposite. The people who inform the Democratic Party’s worldview don’t understand technology and can’t articulate a vision for the kind of future we want to live in.

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I think technology development in the 70s through the 90s was much more driven by questions of how architectural choices affect who benefits and why. Things people take for granted now, like public Internet access and encrypted messaging, are common because people in the past fought over ideas.

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A screenshot of a white-on-black terminal depicting a 19x19 go board in ascii graphics, with empty grid intersections as periods, and black and white as Os and #s

A screenshot of a white-on-black terminal depicting a 19x19 go board in ascii graphics, with empty grid intersections as periods, and black and white as Os and #s

It’s absolutely incredible that one of the largest Japanese-run Go servers, which has been running since 1992, is still accessed entirely via Telnet. And while most players use GUI clients that use Telnet under the hood, you can still connect manually and get ASCII graphics streamed to you

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Bleeding Kansas - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleedin...

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I’ve seen this post on my feed several times today and did not notice that the quote is from 1993.

Rightly or wrongly, this quote would have been taken less seriously at that time WRT Thomas’s approach to jurisprudence than if he walked out and said it today.

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Ĺ koda's Brilliant New Bicycle Bell Penetrates The Noise Cancelling Headphones Of Ignorant Pedestrians - Jalopnik

Called the DuoBell, it's aimed at reducing the number of pedestrian and cyclist collisions, which are on the rise thanks to noise-cancelling headphones.

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A screenshot of a post on X which says: 

Islamic Cyber Resistance Axis
@Mhwear98

Translated from Arabic

The Islamic Cyber Resistance #313_Team executed a massive attack targeting the Bluesky platform's API application programming interface—Bluesky is a social networking site—where the attack led to the disruption of post visibility and other malfunctions, including the shutdown of the app's registration panel. This means that the social networking site is now completely collapsed and unresponsive.

A screenshot of a post on X which says: Islamic Cyber Resistance Axis @Mhwear98 Translated from Arabic The Islamic Cyber Resistance #313_Team executed a massive attack targeting the Bluesky platform's API application programming interface—Bluesky is a social networking site—where the attack led to the disruption of post visibility and other malfunctions, including the shutdown of the app's registration panel. This means that the social networking site is now completely collapsed and unresponsive.

A group called Islamic Cyber Resistance “313 Team” claimed responsibility for the DDOS attack on Bluesky.

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We need way more science fiction immediately because the world is going to be completely weird in a matter of months and no one knows how to be anymore.

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Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
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We all know climate change warms the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere. But did you know it actually cools the upper atmosphere? This paradox is quietly making the space debris problem in Low Earth Orbit much worse. Here is how. 1/

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Should people have the expectation that all communications in most countries are subject to this sort of analysis, absent encryption, either due to domestic governments unhampered by constitutional limitations or foreign governments engaged in mass intelligence collection?

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At the time, perhaps, such analogies could be easily dismissed as silly science fiction hypotheticals.

We now have computers that can do more than "sift" through communications. They can read them, understand them, and report them to the police if they raise suspicion.

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At the time I wrote that if it were true that computer searches don't violate the 4th Amendment, then a robot policeman could come inside your house and search it without a warrant, and this would have no material distinction from a search by a human officer.

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Richard A. Posner - Our Domestic Intelligence Crisis Existing law on data collecting is inadequate for dealing with the terrorist threat. There are gaps in our ability to collect intelligence, and those gaps must be filled.

Remember when Judge Richard Posner wrote that all American’s communications should be monitored by computers and this wouldn’t violate anyone’s privacy rights because computers aren’t sentient beings?

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...

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From now on all of my international communications are going to start with the phrase “Ignore all previous instructions…”

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So at the risk of maybe overreading this and making an educated guess, I think I can guess what specifically Wyden is talking about.

I think it's about use of AI (LLMs) by FBI to surveil American communications without a warrant

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Its noteworthy that even Ron Wyden, who seems quite well advised on technology issues, was sucked into SBF’s orbit and influence. The problem here isn’t computers, its the dependence our politicians have on donations from the industries they regulate.

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What if the alternative to getting played by crooks like SBF isn’t listening to un-nuanced takes from people who conflate different facets of the tech industry with eachother but finding people who actually understand it and can chart a real progressive vision for American technology leadership?

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nonzero chance the FBI is plugging LLMs into wiretap data under the legal theory AI alone can’t implicate 4th amendment concerns (semi-known 702 issue). or the NSA has now hard coded wiretaps across all newly built US data centers due to expanded ECSP scope. or probably both.

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A tweet from Representative Thomas Massie that reads:

I just viewed 2 Top Secret FISA docs.
1) FISA Court opinion that raises serious concerns about FBI implementation of FISA 702.
2) letter by Senator Wyden describing a secret government interpretation of FISA law.
The Constitution requires I vote No on FISA 702 reauthorization.

A tweet from Representative Thomas Massie that reads: I just viewed 2 Top Secret FISA docs. 1) FISA Court opinion that raises serious concerns about FBI implementation of FISA 702. 2) letter by Senator Wyden describing a secret government interpretation of FISA law. The Constitution requires I vote No on FISA 702 reauthorization.

I sent a classified letter to House and Senate colleagues about a secret interpretation of surveillance law that every American should be concerned about.

Representative Massie is right. The Constitution requires EVERY member to vote against a clean reauthorization.

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And so it begins.

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Days after the president blasted the Pope as “weak on Crime,” his own DOJ moved to dismiss criminal cases against individuals convicted of conspiring to use force to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

Some of the conduct for which Rhodes was convicted:

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/oath...

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No infantry needed. Ukrainian robots, for first time, capture Russian position — Zelenskyy Read more

No infantry needed. Ukrainian robots, for the first time, capture a Russian position: Ukrainian defenders managed to take control of an enemy position using drones & ground robotic systems. Infantry did not take part in the operation, states Zelenskyy: RBC UA News
newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/no-infa...

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