Notices by The Sleight Doctor 🃏 (apostateenglishman@mastodon.world), page 2

@tuban_muzuru @rysiek @futurebird Okay help me out here. You somehow do your experiment 100,000 times: deal cards face-up from a face-down shuffled deck, stopping when you get to an ace. You then calculate the probability of the next card also being an ace.

But the next card is never an ace. All 100,000 iterations of the game, it's an indifferent card. You then learn you could have done it an *infinite* number of times, and still have never seen a second ace. The actual probability is 0.

Why?

@tuban_muzuru @rysiek @futurebird I'm not trying to annoy you! Just pointing out that probability calculations don't work if you're missing crucial info: in this case, that the dealer is crooked. He's only shuffling 49 cards - retaining three of the aces to bottom deal as needed. 🤷♂️

But even math is tricky! Assuming a *fair* riffle shuffle and any number of *fair* cuts, what's the probability of dealing four cards, one of each suit, first attempt?

Always 1, if the Gilbreath Principle was used.

@AnarchoNinaWrites Yeah, listen to Nina folks. We didn't defeat the Nazis after WWII, we enthusiastically recruited all their top scientists, engineers and technicians to prevent their expertise falling into the hands of the Soviet Union. We even enlisted those who had paramilitary training into NATO's extralegal stay-behind networks, which engaged in espionage, subversion, sabotage, assasinations and worse throughout Western Europe during the Cold War.

And that was *before* shit got dark...

@julieofthespirits @RandomDamage @Moss @davetroy Anarcho-capitalism is a thing, but the "anarcho" part doesn't align well with what, say, the anarcho-syndicalists uphold. The former believe in the pursuit of unfettered self-interest in the competitive arena of an unregulated market, the latter in organizing around shared wants and needs - collective bargaining, unions, co-ops, mutual aid etc.

In the popular imagination, "anarchism" is synonymous with lawlessness, civil disorder, even terrorism.

I'm seeing a lot of posts urging activists and anyone who may be targeted under a Trump regime, to start using the Signal app to organise. This is indeed great advice for keeping your comms secure!

However, it's also possible to carry your entire computer around with you on an encrypted USB drive, boot it from almost any desktop device, and leave no forensic trace when you close down. @tails comes prepackaged with a whole range of privacy tools.

Time to Linux?

@eff

https://tails.net/

@ekis Ah those "secret" billionaire hideaways!

Like the Doomstay Bunker in Kansas, 1325 Gold Rd #5, Glasco, KS 67445. A Cold War missile silo built in the early 1960s at a cost of $15 million. One of 72 "hardened" silo structures meant to withstand a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Bought for $300,000 in 2008 by ex-government contractor Larry Hall. Now a 15-story subterranean bolt-hole where up to 75 individuals can survive a maximum of five years.

It's right here. 👇

@gooba42 @AnarchoNinaWrites @hannu_ikonen Right. Way back when the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act came out here in 2001, the original "Snooper's Charter" (or the "Grim RIPA" as we called it!), I was among the activists arguing that if you build the physical apparatus and legal mechanisms for an intrusive nanny state - relying solely on the good nature of its current personnel to use it wisely - it will always be turned against its citizens eventually. 🤷♂️

@AnarchoNinaWrites The thing about Cassandra, is that she was always right. 🤷♂️

@jeffowski Interestingly, the latest evidence from neuroscience suggests (ironically) that gender identity may well be "innate" to a significant extent. Brains and primary sex characteristics develop along separate genomic pathways, and scans of trans people both before and after HRT consistently reveal them to have neuroanatomy matching their gender identity, not their natal sex.

To put it bluntly, gender - while expression varies - may be about as much of a "choice" as sexual orientation. 🤷♂️