David Cox

Someone once said that it is better to burn out than to fade away. However, I believe that in my case, I will do neither. Instead, my brain will lose the will to remain semi-solid, and it will drool out my ear.

I woke up this morning in Manhattan, and I am now in San Francisco, but somewhere in between, I testified before the House Financial Services Committee in Washinton, DC.

Saturday "booking a 5-day BOS-JFK-DCA-SFO-BOS flight itinerary" vibes.

Do you have one of those piano ties?

It would be awesome if @dieworkwear.bsky.social weighed in on this sartorial conundrum, and more generally, how one should dress for these kinds of "must dress formally" events (in the rest of my life, I basically wear copies of the same black shirt and jeans every day)

I have been asked to testify before the Senate _again_ in a few weeks, and now I am wondering if it is a fashion faux pas to where the same tie in consecutive testimonies only weeks apart.

My linocut in blue of Fran Allen (woman with short hair, glasses, smiling at viewer) surrounded by green optimization diagrams (with lines, arrows and labels) from her famous 1971 paper.

Happy birthday to trailblazing American computer scientist Frances Elizabeth Allen (1932 – 2020) who made foundational contributions to optimizing compilers, optimizing programs and parallel computing. 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬🧮 #histsci She was the first woman to become an IBM Fellow, where she worked from 1957 to 2002🧵

it is apparently the third oldest continuously operating business in Cambridge, so not off the mark.

I got my first piece of formalwear—a second hand tuxedo for youth symphony performances—from them when I was 16, and they never disappoint

Yes! If you ever are in the Boston area and need same day tailoring, Keezer's in Cambridge has got your back.

My view from the witness panel.

Some jerk in a suit.

Today was a blur, but at some point earlier in that blur, I testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment.

thanks!... unrelated: do know any tailors in the area who do quick-turn suit alterations?

No, YOU'RE ordering four dress shirts at 8PM in different sizes and fits, to pick up in-store tomorrow, because you have to fly to DC on Tuesday to testify to Congress and don't have a shirt you can wear with a tie.

His opposition to what now?

Forget ChatGPT! This will revolutionize science!

openCHEAT: Computationally Helped Error bar Approximation Tool - Kickstarting Science 4.0

eggerbernhard.ch/SIGBOVIK_ope...

Plenty of happy users since 2021!

1/5

I suspect that we've been doing the same thing to ourselves for generations.

That's good news. One of the most compelling theories of wolf domestication I have heard is that they *self*-domesticated, at least at the beginning. There was an evolutionary advantage to being less terrifying and therefore able to get closer to the humans without getting killed.

a dog wrapped in fur, gazing into the distance

Yeah, that's what I thought.

What's that? Yeah, muppets haven't been invented yet. But they're gonna be really goofy. Do we have a deal?

a goofy dog

OK, so here's the deal, wolf. You can have some of this meat we're cooking by this fire, but in exchange, we're going to selectively breed your children, and your children's children, and so on—for 50,000 years—until they are basically ridiculous muppets.

A fire hydrant encased in a plexiglass area indoors, with a sign asking people "please do not use"

Please do not use.

Just another normal day, sharing my knowledge and advice with the people of BlueSky.

an interesting feature of identification threats is that a single low-confidence hypothesis that two graph nodes might be connected is often all that is needed to completely unravel the whole thing.

Definitely. Pretty sure my kids were born with their genetic privacy already compromised, because of 23andme usage across relatives, including many who they will probably never meet. And that's over and above the troves of combined cellular and GPS data that is being warehoused.

My gut intuition is that a DNA sample in the hands of a state actor today can probably identify any individual to within a dozen or fewer candidates. But that may be wrong if there are whole big family trees with no sampling at all.

Most people have no idea how biological material they leave behind, or how diligent you have to be to avoid doing so.

In past professional lives, I have done both sterile surgeries and worked in BSL2 lab environments, and while those are mainly focused on pathogen contamination, you have to work to suppress the many habits that would break the sterile field or bypass a barrier.

Obviously, we voluntarily rat ourselves out on the regular with all of our chattering devices, but even if you turn those off or leave them behind, it is tricky business not leaving a trail of DNA everywhere you go as well.

definitely possible, though if you are worried about a bomb the protocol is usually to detonate, or leverage robots for retrieval and containment. Hazmat suits per se generally protect the wearer... the outside of a hazmat suit can just as easily be contaminated with trace DNA if you aren't careful

Glad we have that settled.