Paul Konstant

Retired scientist/ technologist. Diverse interests, few mainstream, fewer overlap. Follow /= endorsement.
Rational, romantic, mystic, cynical, idealist

[Paul Konstant @progcpl]

@GaryMarcus Congrats, but I wish you knew about FDA policy for software validation (21CFR Part 11) that is used for docs and testing of all software that pharma uses to submit new meds for approval. It's a good framework I used for 25 yrs of my career until I retired.

[Paul Konstant @progcpl]

@Captain69Carlos @anilkseth @TEDTalks It might be important to remember that Penrose & Hameroff proposed a quantum mechanism for consciousness in the 1990s. https://t.co/PFvV01MR23

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

Destroying the @InternetArchive's @WayBackMachine would be the equivalent of the burning of the Library of Alexandria - one of the worst losses of knowledge in history.

Media giants are now threatening to do this.

We can't let this happen.

Pass it on.

[GET A GRIP @docrussjackson]

The Vatican was in no mood to play games with the would-be prophet from Palantir and Nigel Farage’s “friend”, Peter Thiel.

Paolo Benanti, a priest who has advised Pope Francis and Pope Leo on AI and tech ethics, called out Thiel as a “political theologian operating at the very heart of the Silicon Valley ecosystem” and delivered a scathing rebuke of Thiel’s religious delusions:

“Thiel’s entire action can thus be read as a prolonged act of heresy against the liberal consensus: a challenge to the very foundations of civil coexistence, which he now considers outdated.”

Benanti hit Thiel where it hurts, zooming in on his persistent efforts to pervert religious ideas into justifications for greed, monopoly, and authoritarianism.

He exposes Thiel’s obsessive focus on achieving “the pathological radicalization” of “competition, technology, the individual” to argue against democratic society itself.

https://t.co/jeRo1fUIE6

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Sanctioned Russians arriving in DC to present another aid package to the Trump family bank accounts in exchange for continuing to cut off and pressure Ukraine into surrendering. European had better wake up.

[GET A GRIP @docrussjackson]

This week on #bbcqt, arguably the most dangerous man in Britain that few voters have even heard of: Reform UK's anti-abortion #NatCon Head of Policy and Peter Thiel associate, James Orr, who is facilitating the transfer of control of Britain to #MAGA extremists.

FFS WAKE UP!

[Max Flugrath🗳️ @MaxFlugrath]

NEW: The Dept. of Homeland Security official overseeing election security helped advance efforts to seize voting machines after Trump’s 2020 loss.

Now he’s working with election deniers inside DHS.

@ProPublica is connecting alarming dots in Trump’s 2026 election takeover plot.

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

Yes. This is transparently the plan. It is a destructive and unconstitutional plan. And it can be stopped. It can even be turned into an electoral issue that hurts Trump. But only if we face this now.

[Bette Dangerous @Heidi_Cuda]

What You See at the End of the World

A book report on The Essential Anna Politkovskaya, the reporter who documented the rise of a KGB snoop, the Second Chechen War, and the 'age of the oligarchs' before being murdered on Putin's birthday

1/ https://t.co/BWLAtHwJzA

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

We need your drone interceptors for our war, but we won’t thank you and our propaganda will claim that we made them.

[julie k. brown @jkbjournalist]

NEW: Prison guards discussed cover-up of Epstein's death https://t.co/nQZ3qN9UOE

[Paul Konstant @progcpl]

@Heidi_Cuda @threadreaderapp unroll please

[Paul Konstant @progcpl]

@Heidi_Cuda I wish I had understood the last page earlier. I must have missed it since I'm not on here as much.

[Bette Dangerous @Heidi_Cuda]

So as their internal documents revealed, they began batting around the idea of a proxy war as a way to destroy Biden’s reelection chances.

Sometimes, targets are hit indirectly.

Biden became ‘genocide Joe’ — blamed for a war he did not start.

6/

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

This is racism, pure and simple. It’s also a test. The UK press needs to describe it for exactly what it is: that Reform’s candidate made a racist and inflammatory losing statement

[The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent]

⚡️US abstains from UN vote on 'lasting peace in Ukraine' on 4th anniversary of war.

"Is not missing children, shelling of cities, and the killing of innocents enough? It is not a business deal — it is war," former Special Envoy Keith Kellogg said.
https://t.co/8EODcuWW4T

[Emoluments Clause @Emolclause]

#BREAKING: Lawrence: "Former USAID official...who joined us on this program last night reported, it is estimated that USAID's dismantling has ALREADY caused the DEATHS of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them CHILDREN. That's 400,000 children dead."😢

[Acyn @Acyn]

Carney: We know that this decades-long process of our ever-closer economic relationship between Canada and the United States has ended. And as a consequence of that, many of our strengths have become our vulnerabilities, particularly in those industries that are most tightly integrated with the United States.

Headline last year: 75% of our exports went to the U.S. Ninety percent of our lumber exports went to the U.S. Ninety percent of our aluminum exports went to the United States. Ninety percent of our steel exports went there. All bound for a single market that has changed.

Overall, for the Canadian economy, we estimate that U.S. tariffs and the uncertainty they’re creating will cost Canadians around 1.8% of GDP. That’s about $50 billion lost from our economy, or the equivalent of $1,300 for every Canadian. And this is happening fast. It’s a rupture, which means our economic strategy needs to change dramatically and rapidly.

And that change is in Budget 2025 — our plan to confront these challenges and emerge even stronger, to move our economy from reliance to resilience, and to give ourselves far more than any foreign nation can ever take away.

[Paul Konstant @progcpl]

@jimstewartson @jimstewartson , I'm a scientist who has been interested in complex systems research for 40 years. I completely agree, and appreciate, you describing the current situation as a conflict b/w complexity and simplicity. I shudder to think of how bad this will be.

[Jake Scott, MD @jakescottMD]

The CDC just rewrote its vaccine and autism page to claim that saying "vaccines do not cause autism" is not evidence-based. This is false.

The evidence is overwhelming & consistent. 🧵
https://t.co/kJ4ntrlPhA