FoxQuirk 🦊 @quirk@computerfairi.es

‪the swedish krona is a currency that, allegedly, has a physical form‬

withdrew cash and used it for a purchase just to feel something… haven't done this in years (in this country anyway)

Woke up this morning to an email security alert from PayPal claiming that they had stopped an 'unusual charge' against a credit card I have linked in my PayPal wallet (and which I use occasionally there).

The email indicated that I needed to use the PayPal app to get the details, but I don't use the app, so I logged in to the PayPal website instead. It too told me that I needed to use the app, which is just ridiculous since there is no reason the information cannot be made available in both places.

Out of caution I installed the app and logged in. In the app the warning says they "blocked several people from using <card number>", and that I should contact the card issuer to get a new card issued. There are no more details than that.

I find it hard to believe that any of this is real, since PayPal cannot 'block' charges on the card made outside of PayPal, and if the unusual charges were made inside of PayPal then PayPal themselves are the ones to handle it, not the card issuer. Most importantly, other users of PayPal aren't able to see the contents of my PayPal wallet unless PayPal themselves had a security breach.

Does anyone have a clue what all this means?

#PayPal #Fraud

Reckon🧮 — A theorem prover and logical inference library in Rust

https://github.com/adam-mcdaniel/reckon

Discussions: https://discu.eu/q/https://github.com/adam-mcdaniel/reckon

#programming #rustlang

If you look at coffee web sites you'll find articles with names like "DIY water* and "make your own water" but they're all "first you take water that already exists and then you add such and such proportion of minerals" and none of them talk about buying a bag of hydrogen and a bag of oxygen at the Piggly Wiggly and combining them in a stand mixer, like the water my grandma used to make

It's annoying that when I think of big, prominent tech figures I have to now mentally assess if they have gone full Palpatine or not. So much technical debt on these projects.

@jerry spouse got involved with the dei program at her work. the real keys she says were 1) just getting underrepresented scientists to apply, and 2) making sure you interview more than one underrepresented person. then 3) hire the best person for the job.

by following #1 and #2 you remove a ton of weird innate biases that people have that, even if they're conscious of it, they fall into. basically, if you follow #1 and #2, you even the odds that #3 results in someone besides a 'white dude' getting the job.

The stats were crazy: say you have 10 candidates. If you interview just 1 minority, they have ~1% chance of getting hired. If you interview 2 minorities, they have ~10% chance each (which is exactly what it should be out of a pool of 10!). This is even when 'smart' people are doing the interviews and they've been taught about implicit biases.

Anyway, following those rules her team ended up hiring a grad student recently who turned into a super duper rockstar. this grad student discovered something crazy about the way genes work. the hire now has a patent application for a cool discovery, and papers coming, and is part of this whole new research paradigm now.

and all because the grad student comes from a part of the world where they eat a different type of foodstuff than westerners. basically learning some fundamental new things about the way genes work in a plant that nobody else would have even thought to look at in her field, which can have huge impacts on western foodstuffs now that they understand the underlying chemistry.

anyway. it's not a 'diversity hire' story. that isn't what DEI is or should be. it's just a "get a diverse pool of applicants to apply, then choose the best one, and sometimes you end up really clicking with someone who brings something new to the table" story. which, in my mind, is exactly why diversity wins...

@jerry many years ago I had the privilege of being an exec sponsor for the NSAs LGBTQ ERG (wow loads of caps).. unlike what I've seen across private industry, the ERG was no social club. The group tackled real policy issues and drove increased understanding across the workforce. The ERG members were fearless and amazing. Management across the board supported all of our ERGs and other diversity groups. Super proud to have done nothing and got a trophy anyhow. Lol.

I was the 10th woman PhD mathematician hired by the NSA. Tons of dedication to increase more women and minorities in math at all levels of education was a priority in the community at the time..and it paid off.. making a difference both in government and across academia. Also super proud to have seen so many people get education and career opportunities from these efforts.

Now I have been on the 'outside' for several years, I'm hoping they stay strong and stay the course...

Can y’all share positive DEI stories because I’m getting tired of DEI stories in the news?

Mother, why do you mock us?

STRENGTH CRUSHES ENEMIES! HAVE YOU EATEN TODAY?

party mouse

Gonna re-repost my article from yesterday as a treat because it really condenses a dozen things i care about and said before

A gaming CEO recently went mask off chud, tarnishing the image of a game i like in the process

In this, i discuss what engaging with the complexity of gender in games where you can create your character should mean - and it doesn’t mean simply changing language.

https://aria.dog/demons/nexus/type-c/

this is how it feels to have anxiety

what a journey