Technology advances forced the Census Bureau to use sweeping measures to ensure privacy for respondents. The ensuing debate goes to the heart of what a census is.

This is a great article on a big-name application of differential privacy: it even features an interview with Dworkin! This, to me, seems like a pretty necessary change to preserve the privacy of folks.

via: https://mit.edu/6.1800/www/tutorials/01-intro.shtml

Merging the Trump and CHH personas together: How would I talk about my Substack if I were Trump? / This 15-minute, one-take improvised Trump impression brought to you by mental illness.

This has no right to be this good.

Beyond the fact that plenty of OCD manifestations are just too taboo for public consumption, I think one thing that really irks people is when someone has a high degree of insight into their OCD, but still frequently falls victim to it and is unable to be cured. In their minds, mental illness always has an endpoint. It becomes a weird prior chapter of your life, you can turn the page, and look back on it to say, “Ahh, those terrible times, before I discovered therapy.” They are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that you will be like this forever.

This is also the conclusion I’ve come to in dealing with my own intrusive thoughts. I shall save it for 1:1s w/ my therapist and share with no one else. Otherwise, it’s ultimately too exhausting for everyone involved.

Let’s learn and grow. New things are cool!

Simple economic arguments for why solar, batteries, and other renewable energy technologies are possible RN and clearly the future.

And then some much needed discussion of politics.

Clickbait Title: I’m so tired.

In the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is a unique legal entity with characteristics unlike any other, which thereby allow its powers to be abused unlike any other. Lawyers have long seen ICE as a threat to American democracy, and for good reason.

Cis people are friggin’ stupid sometimes. Jeez.

Sometimes, a book is a dud.

In this blog post, I have tried to list off every anti-trans policy done by the Trump administration as of January 2025.

Yes, humans are not great evaluators. Yes, algorithms add a level of determinism into the game (this is not to be confused with objectivity: they just aren’t due to being made by humans). Yes, any flaw you can point out in a prediction algorithm can arguably be found in humans, too. Still doesn’t make algorithms significantly more justifiable than human evaluators. Plus, unlike humans, computers can’t take responsibility for management decisions. And of course, as we make predictive algorithms more complex with AI, bias becomes harder to identify and nigh-impossible to fix. Sigh.

A mathematician volunteers to teach a class at a women’s prison and learns an unexpected lesson. Told live at our Man Behind the Curtain Show on June 16, 2018 at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, NC.

via: https://geometrynyc.wixsite.com/home/combinatorics-reu

Hypothesis:

Zoning and food safety laws add up to outlaw tiny restaurants operated by one or two staff.

Thus making prices go up by forcing teams to scale up their operations and take up more space. The United States is capable of restaurants where quantity of sales, rather than quality, makes a business profitable—see the automat and the diner—but this kind of business has faded away in recent years.

Are the youth succumbing to a “negativity bias” where they see the past through “rose-colored glasses”? Are the economists looking at some ivory tower High Modernist metric that fails to capture real life? Or is there something more complicated going on?

As per usual in economics, the answer is “it’s complicated.”

But wanting to be a good person might be your most dangerous motivation.

If our movement is successful, it will be because of tens of thousands of people who all tried different things.”

I am not part of animal advocacy, but these are good rules to live by, nonetheless.

To his followers, this has always been the promise of Trump. Whatever bitterness you harbor in the recesses of your heart, you can hold it forward and be embraced. But these days it’s more than just social acceptance. You can enact vengeance on your chosen enemies in the real world. There’s an audience for your fearmongering and a protectorate for your prejudice.

Oregon state Rep. Ricki Ruiz said three people were detained in his district after ICE agents posed as utility workers.

Actually cooked.

These stories come in the aftermath of allegations that a small but mighty cabal of “LGBT reporters” had somehow seized control of the BBC and “censored” right-wing views.

Absurd.

via: https://www.tumblr.com/ot3/801700640730611712