My view on lent:

My biggest problem with lent is the public display of fasting which is contrary to scripture: Matthew 6:16-18

Just as well, overhearing discussions of humble brags, “oh man, this is so hard fasting from x” while displaying ashes on one’s forehead seems overtly contrary to scripture. Again, Matthew 6:16-18 is clear.

Additionally it has been my experience that repentance and fasting lose much of their substance for those practicing the tradition.

However....

We cannot oversimplify and call lent a “Roman Catholic invention” or a “pagan” practice given its presence, minimally the term, in the early church with people like Athanasius.

In the modern conception: Advent is to Christmas what lent is to Easter. While asceticism is removed and shallow tradition enters into the practice, this can happen in most everything.

Pathways to Public Policy Careers for those interested and looking for global opportunities

Public policy is made when a governing body attempts to address an issue of widespread public concern, such as health care. The process often runs in cycles and can take years.

■After new laws are created, Policy Implementation occurs, often involving federal agencies, state and local governments, bureaucratic entities, and NGOs. Courts get involved as laws and policies are challenged on a variety of fronts.

■Analysis and Evaluation occurs throughout the cycle and involves many players. Policies may be changed — and the cycle begins again.

What is the best advice for someone pursuing a career in public policy?

People often find their way to public policy careers because of an

interest in a particular substantive area. Public policy work can be found in virtually any subject area.

Your ears should perk up when you hear the words “Center for,” “Institute,” “Association,” and “Foundation” because they represent potential employers.

Public policy majors work in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, such as a government agency or advocacy group.

Continuing education, such as a certification or fellowship, can also advance your career as someone interested in public policy and politics.

cw: suicide, reactionary bs
[Thread]

One thing that really pissies me off are those facist reactionary "#ProLife" bigots.

And I'll explain in detail, WHY they are bigoted.

So strap in and hold tight...

Regardless if those advocate for the [very facist] idea of de-facto criminalizing #suicide or #abortions, "#ProLife" advocates aka. bigots are not willing to provide even a halfass alternative substitute as a figleaf to pseudo-legitimize their ideas.

I mean, regardless whether or not one person should be allowed to have a say into the health, life and well-beijng of another person is something agrees with [I think #ProChoice is the only non - reactionary-facist answer!]...

...it is clear that people don't actively seek suicide nor abortion unless they don't see another option and the alternatives are not acceptable to them.

Therefore I could at least respect [but not agree with] "#ProLife" people if they'd actually offer alternatives.

I.e. you don't want to have so many #abortion|s?
Then make actual sex - education mandatory, provide contraceptives, child-care and medical care for free whilst offering paid parental leave and undo the Gender Pay Gap ffs so that people are not economically forced into a decision

Since everyone from @GovAbbott to @DanCrenshawTX are continuing to pass off massive lies about the energy situation in Texas, let's look at it again. Because it's not wind that's the problem. It's profit-protecting "deregulation" and a perverse idea of the "free market." … 1/18

On Wed., millions of Texans are still without power. Meanwhile, Austin is expected to reach freezing just in time for a massive ice storm expected to bring down trees and powerlines. Plus, broken water lines everywhere. So clearly, the people in charge need a scapegoat. … 2/18

Fox News and GOP politicians—including Gov. Abbott — have been taking this “opportunity” to attack wind energy, call for the burning of more fossil fuels, and to make claims that green power is “deadly.” Surprise! They're lying. … 3/18

In 2003, Australia installed a pair of wind turbines at it’s Mawson Research Station in Antarctica. One of those turbines failed … after 14 years of operating in sub zero temperatures and winds over100 mph. The other turbine is still operating today. … 4/18

At the opposite end of the planet, wind turbines are operating at Svalbard, the most northerly town in the world. The fishing town of Havoysund, inside the Arctic Circle, runs on wind power. Greenland has been steadily moving to wind since 2008. … 5/18

Grab a coffee. This thread will be informative & long.

An exchange infrastructure that offers ZERO trading fees and DEEP liquidity - Meet @wootraderS

In a way, Wootrade is to exchanges what #Ethereum is to #DApps 🔥

..And they have a token, $WOO

Here are my findings👇

Wootrade was incubated by Kronos Research. (Similar to $FTX being incubated by @SBF_Alameda )

Kronos Research is a quantitative investment research institution.

Its daily volume is over $1 billion!

Wootrade offers traders, institutions and exchanges deep orderbooks and best trade execution.

The problem: Exchanges have to pay high costs for market makers.

The solution: Wootrade removes that need for them + lets their clients enjoy trading free of charge.

Exchanges need to stake a tiered amount of $WOO for some of the usage.

This generally offsets the costs for market makers. Plus, exchanges earn staking rewards from the token!

Here are some that use it already: @MXC_Exchange, @Hoo_exchange, @gate_io.

Look at the spreads of Hoo after implementing Wootrade.

They're super thin!

Why @BJP4Bengal Will Win #WestBengalElection2021
A Thread
This road is maintained by PWD, Government of West Bengal” is an omnipresent signboard that greets travellers in almost every nook and corner of the state.The region may change from Cooch Behar & Darjeeling in North Bengal

To Jhargram in Junglemahal and Kultali in Sunderban, but the signboard remains the same. After having travelled for almost 13,000 km in the state from October 2020 to Decem maber ority of the places the roads, especially in the interiors, are in bad shape.

This state of affairs is unfortunately true for the incumbent party too. It’s everywhere in the state, but mostly in pretty bad shape. Barring rare exceptions, the people’s impression of the local Trinamool leadership

everywhere falls in the same template. corrupt, rowdy and arrogant. On top of that, the fear of retribution by the incumbents is so strong that the line between the people’s dislike and their hate against the ruling party often gets blurred.

Severl respondents across the state narrated the way dissidents, opponents and anyone daring to question the prevailing corruption and upmanship on the ground are hounded systematically, which includes measures like physical attacks, filing of false cases and depriving them of

@bradplumer hits topic on point with best summation to date of range of policy solutions to harden US electric grids 1/

2/ Wind turbines can be equipped to operate in icy conditions

3/ Thermal natural gas plants can be built to store oil on-site to fuel switch during emergencies

Capacity market with adequacy payments encourage storage Eg Grid regulators “design markets that pay extra to keep a larger fleet of backup power plants in reserve in case of emergencies”

Integrate EVs into residential solar systems with inverters that can automatically island away from grid (inverters need extreme weather related equipment)

So Chicken noodles has finally made a youtube channel. In this video, she explains why she left Islam and gives some reasons behind it. The video is 8 minutes long. I am going to refute the 2 points she brought up in this clip below.

A Refutation Thread 📌🧵

The 2 points she brought up were:

1) Women receiving half the inheritance than that of a man

2) Women are ordered to cover their bodies to prevent sexualization from men (To wear Hijab).

I am going to refute number 1 first and then number 2.

So why does the quran states that a woman should receive half the inheritance than that of a man? Surely it seems quite misogynistic right?
In reality, Islam is just in every case.

In Islam, a man is supposed to take care of the FINANCIALS of his WHOLE family. This includes his father, mother, wife and his children. Don't you think that taking care of so many people is going to require more money?.

Islam does not order WOMEN to take care of the FINANCES. So even if a woman decides not to help in the financial situation of a house, there is NO SIN on her.

A quick thread on intelligence analysis in the context of cyber threat intelligence. I see a number of CTI analysts get into near analysis paralysis phases for over thinking their assessments or over obsessing about if they might be wrong. (1/x)

Consider this scenario. A CTI analyst identifies new intrusions and based on the collection available and their expertise note that the victims are all banks. Their consumer wants to know when threats specifically target banks (not just that banks are victims).

The CTI analyst has, from their collection, at this time, and based on their expertise enough to make an activity group (leveraging the Diamond Model in this example) that meet's the requirement of their consumer. So what's the problem?

The CTI analyst begins to over think it. "What if I had more collection? Would my analysis change? I really don't *know* they aren't also targeting mining companies in Australia as I don't have collection there."

The analyst knows their analysis is going to be shared. Maybe even public. "What if another team or professional intelligence firm has more collection and ends up noting that it isn't banking specific at all. Banks are victims, not targets. Will my consumer distrust me later?"

So many of the misleading narratives about the #TexasBlackout are missing a fundamental understanding of our electric power supply, and its mutual vulnerabilities with our gas systems. We're facing an _energy systems_ crisis, not just an electricity crisis.

To understand why, we can begin by seeing how ERCOT generates power on average. Nearly half is from gas. Wind topped coal last year for the first time. We have just 4 nuclear units, little hydro, and solar soaring from a small base.

That supply provides power for most but not all of the state. And the grid is contained within Texas, with very little transmission linking to the rest of the country or Mexico. So what happens in Texas, stays in Texas.

You'll also notice that the grid can operate just fine with very high levels of wind -- over 50% at times -- at that our peaks typically come in summer. We also have a minuscule but growing amount of battery storage (0.2 GW vs. 74 GW peak demand).

Before each season, ERCOT issues a Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy. It's meant to plan for the peak demand expected that season.

@majinsayan Let us begin:

1) Defendants operated an undisclosed Insider Trading Desk managed by Gregory Dwyer with at least three key employees, including Stuart Elkington and Nick Andrianov.

This desk operated to continuously manipulate markets on the BitMEX platform and cause artificial prices for BitMEX derivatives, including derivatives of
Bitcoin and Ethereum

The operators of the Insider Trading Desk had what BitMEX internally referred to as “God Access” that allowed them to see all of the information of all trader accounts, including any hidden orders and the liquidation points for all orders and open positions.

They were also provided with automated systems, built by BitMEX, leveraging this highly sensitive insider information to enable their manipulation that told them how the market was likely to move by assessing the impact of the hidden orders and liquidations, when they triggered.

Thus, based on the sensitive insider information of BitMEX traders, the automated system was able to predict a potential profit for BitMEX from liquidating its traders, triggered by a potential manipulation.

Once again I'm reminded that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The recent push by a large number of autistic people to 'own' their diagnosis and try to raise acceptance and dispel harmful myths has kicked up a minority of autistic people to fight against this.

This may seem bizarre - who fights against improved acceptance? - but actually has clear roots in the ongoing culture war the West seems engaged in. The identity positive autistic movement, of which I am a part, is viewed by some as another manifestation of 'wokeness'.

This is the right-wing definition of 'wokeness', of course - ie a modern equivalent of the pejorative take on political correctness, but it's definitely at the core of this 'neurorealist' movement - the idea the autistic community is being hijacked by 'woke lefties'.

They believe that the push for acceptance of neurodiversity and rejection of the medicalisation of autism is misguided and drawing attention away from those autistic people who, in their view, need more help and intervention.

The trouble is, this view is pretty much baseless. Firstly, there is little evidence that autistic advocates who push for acceptance are in any way harming autistic people who require more help and support. Second, the view effectively silences those of us who are able to share.

For people curious about the Roam API and confused by the syntax, or interested in why Conor went with Datomic/Datascript and not a traditional database, this older talk by Roam developer @mark_bastian is a great overview.

He gives great examples using Spiderman of how even modeling something fairly trivial in SQL is much more complex than in Datomic. But the real kicker is when you're trying to interrogate the data to find recursive relationships.

Right now the Roam data model (at least that's exposed to developers) is just about pages, blocks, and children with tags. Already you can see how finding the page containing a block with a certain tag etc is useful.https://t.co/jWJnuKu1RG

But imagine when attribute relationships are fully represented

You should be able to model the entire Spiderman story in Roam.
Page title: Peter Parker
Child of:: [[Richard Parker]] [[Mary Parker]]
Aliases:: [[Spidey]]

etc, and do these kind of queries.

"Show me quotes about operational efficiency in books by authors who used to be in the military"
"Show me companies in Boise, Idaho, founded by women, whose evaluation is lower than 10X ARR"

Finally, here’s the *EASY* Steps to becoming a United States Registered Nurse🇺🇸

It’s a long thread, but that’s because I tried to make it nice and easy for you, so bookmark for reference.

Retweet and Tag as many Nurses as you know who might be interested.

#USRN 🇺🇸

STEP 1 ; You have to be a Registered Nurse with valid practicing license and at least 1year post-qualification experience in a at least 100 bedded hospital/institution, worked in the particular ward Or department for a minimum of 3months!& possess a valid international Passport!

For IELTS & immigration purposes, you’re taking, the ACADEMIC IELTS wt 6.5 overall!& at least 7 in speaking

STEP 2
Then, Register with Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools,(CGFNS) for credentials evaluation of secondary education, nursing education & licensure

in order to take NCLEX. their website:

NB; have all your academic record with you to make it easier, as the form is a bit tedious. Once you’re done, proceed to paying for Credential Evaluation Service (CES) this is the report prepared by CGFNS, the evaluation fee is $350

#FafduPlesis retires from Test cricket

Here's a thread on my most memorable test inning of Faf that came in his debut test match itself and happens to be one of the best ever innings played on Test match debut. 
He made 110* off 376 deliveries and secured a draw for SA !

It was the 2nd Test of the 2012/13 series between South Africa & Australia and the latter had posted an improbable target of 430 for the visitors to chase in the 4th inn.

SA’s start was a disastrous one. Skipper Graeme Smith departed for a duck in the 1st over. Hashim Amla, Alviro Petersen and Jacques Rudolph didn’t muster much between them, leaving the visitors reeling at 45-4. All this with 29 overs left on day 4.

In walked du Plessis, joining de Villiers in one of the most fascinating blockathons in modern-day cricket. The latter took an uncharacteristically defensive approach,consuming 220 deliveries for his 33. The fall of AB's wicket did not deter du Plessis though.

He was then joined by Kallis, who himself was battling with a hamstring strain. Together they took South Africa to tea with 5 wickets still intact.

So the Canadian government will soon be introducing legislation aimed at regulating platforms with respect to harmful speech, spearheaded by Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. I'm concerned b/c we haven't seen a lot of serious thought from the Gov on this. A thread:

Guilbeault has taken this on as part of a large digital regulatory agenda that also includes things like requiring Canadian content on streaming services, and potentially forcing intermediaries to pay for news (like Australia).

We don't know what form the legislation will take, but there's cause for concern that it's partially going to look a lot like the German NetzDG law, and require hate speech and other illegal speech to be taken down quickly. It will also include a new regulator to do...something

The concern comes from the PM's mandate letter to the Minister, which asked him to "create new regulations for social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties."

I haven't seen anything to suggest Guilbeault has moved away from this. His office was quoted recently as saying "our approach will require online platforms to monitor and eliminate illegal content that appears on their platforms."