iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

A lot of people have asked me since starting my own freelance/solopreneur company how I am managing things like health insurance and taxes. So time for a new blog post on @towardsdatascience.com ! towardsdatascience.com/what-i-learn...

towardsdatascience.com

What I Learned in my First 18 Months as a Freelance Data Scientist | Towards Data Science

The taxes and health insurance edition

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Got word that my new LinkedIn Learning course on #GraphRAG will be going live soon! Stay tuned for the official announcement!

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

This is just par for the course. Remember how many close advisors and cabinet members he went through during his first term? Steve Bannon?

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

And again, the volume of waste hours down if we allow reprocessing. Plus, you are not burying a bunch of material that could still be used in power generation, which is (excuse me) wasteful.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

So it is not possible to verify storage options because nobody will guarantee anything for 10k years (nor should they). However, if laws were rewritten to allow for monitoring and upgrading as necessary, this becomes a very different problem.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

We DO know how to store it. The problem is that it is written into law (at least in the US) the words "unmonitored and unretrievable." So that means we can't go in and upgrade the store or tinker with it to make it better for 10k years. A shot in the foot.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Take France, for example. They get approximately 70% of their power from nuclear. They reprocess spent fuel into MOX fuel. The amount of spent fuel they store is remarkably small relative to countries like the US.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Water remains an "unsolved problem" to certain nations like the US who have written into law that they would not reprocess fuel. Those who do reprocess have spent fuel that is actually safer.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

I think it might help if you define "better." Are you referring to the thermal efficiency? Strictly based off of E=mc2, nuclear has the highest efficiency of mass-energy conversion of existing power solutions while not emitting greenhouse bases.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

What about the physics do you find out of whack?

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Reposted by CJ Sullivan

Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Spare us the fake outrage.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Everyone says raising teenagers is really hard. And before you have one, you just say "yeah, I know," because it is all you can say to that. But you don't really know.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Spent the week recording my upcoming course on GraphRAG at the LinkedIn Learning studios. What an awesome experience!

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Why are people at conferences still using Twitter?

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

... But I will certainly consider VPNing into a different country if necessary!

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Starting my search now to find ways to stream the #TourDeFrance that is NOT Peacock. They got rid of the international feed for this year and I HATE the US commentators/feed with the burning passion of a thousand dying suns. FuboTV streams the Peacock feed and FloBikes is not available in the US.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Hot take: The major AI companies and the media are doing a complete disservice to the field. It is a PR mess. The only things we are seeing are dystopian uses. Where are the positive use cases? My clients are working on climate change, food insecurity, and refugee movement from war zones. Others?

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Trump calls the election of Pope Leo "a great honor." News flash, you shit gibbon. They are not honoring YOU. If anything, it is a rebuke of you.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

So yeah, not everything is ACTUALLY a boundary. Maybe you just need to grow up and accept that sometimes we have to have hard conversations. Ask me how I know. (And I have pictures to prove it.) (15/15)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

And YOU were the one who got them to think this way, because you couldn't be adult enough to accept the difficult and uncomfortable discussion created by your lack of responsibility. (14/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

They will roll their eyes because, based on their experience with "boundaries," they don't work because they are silly and frivolous. (13/n, I think)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

And while this might seem petty, you calling it a boundary does disservice to the mental health community. Because every time a survivor of abuse tries to create a legitimate boundary people will think about these petty examples of "boundaries" that you created. (12/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

That is NOT a boundary. That is you being uncomfortable with how things have gone, recognizing that you have responsibility here. (11/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

So the victim is trying to at least come out not owing anything. They contact you and want your insurance information so the insurance companies can sort it out. And you say "I am setting a boundary that I will not provide you with the insurance information." (10/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

The bite victim goes to urgent care and the diagnosis and treatment cost a few hundred $. Your dog was clearly the aggressor here and this is not in dispute. The victim, despite having insurance, has to shell out cash for treatment. Also not in dispute. (9/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

So let's do an example. Purely hypothetical, of course. Let's say your dog is off leash and gets away from you. It does not respond to your vocal commands and attacks another dog on leash and a human, leaving large bite wounds in the latter, costing hundreds for treatment. (8/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

There are a lot of people out there who say things like ", talking about this subject violated my boundaries" when what they really mean is "I am uncomfortable talking about this subject." Calling this the violation of a boundary does HUGE disservice to the mental health community. (7/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Here is where I am going to get controversial. Boundaries are not about me starting what I do not like to talk about. Because we all have to talk about things we don't like from time to time. Boundaries are supposed to protect us, but avoidance is not protection. (6/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

An effective boundary defines the parameter space in which you will interact with someone as well as the consequences for violating that parameter space. (5/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

An example of a good boundary would be something like "I do not tolerate people who shout at me. If you choose to shout at me I will bring this conversation to an end." Notice how this is about behavior. (4/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

And before I go any further, I want to be clear that I am a survivor of multiple types of abuse in my life. We are talking about the kinds of things that land people in jail (ideally). Through many years I have learned how to set effective boundaries. And I still have much to learn. (3/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

A boundary sets a parameter space for how you will interact with someone. For example, "I will tolerate this but will not allow you to do that." They are designed limit types of inappropriate interactions. They are NOT for just keeping you from feeling bad. (2/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Boundaries: a rant and a 🧵 Boundaries are an important tool in the psychological landscape. They can help protect you in a variety of places, including toxic relationships. But just because you call something a "boundary" doesn't mean it actually is a boundary. I will explain. (1/n)

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Yeah, that sucked to maintain! Pretty much had to redo every 3-5 washings.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

I had that car as a manual! Something wrong when a car has more gears than cylinders...by 2!

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

This is my hair from a few years ago. I have a PhD in STEM and was a professor in Illinois for a while. What is my grant value!

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

I'm going to be honest. It is really hard to want to vote for a Democrat right now because I am so frickin sick of hearing them whine about him violating the courts and what not and yet still wanting to play things out in court. I will be casting my midterm vote for death by asteroid.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Impeachment didn't exactly matter the first two times.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I love your section on the things you just about interviews. That part about tech not crediting you for all of your pay experience rings so true to me!

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Careful! It gets in your head and then will never leave!

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

One of my neighbors is back! We haven't seen them in a while. This is a very small one, probably about a year old, newly left its mother.

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CJ Sullivan @cjlovesdata1.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Those of us raised by Cluster B parents recognized this instantly. And we are not OK.

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